Protein degradation is one of the hot drug classes of the future, but competitors are piling in with the likes of C4, Arvinas, Frontier Medicines and Vividion jostling for position. A new startup wants to apply the lessons learned from degradation outside the cell, and it now has the greenlight from RA Capital to steam ahead.

Avilar Therapeutics launched Thursday with $60 million from founding investor RA to chase a novel protein degradation drug class the startup is calling ATACs— short for “ASGPR Targeting Chimeras” — that looks to trash unwanted proteins circulating outside the human cell.

As the future of machine learning and AI promises to make major breakthroughs in drug development, a suite of startups is looking to scale their own competing robot brain trusts. An ambitious startup out of Flagship Pioneering’s incubator uncloaked last year with its own spin in that arms race — and now it’s primed and ready for a major expansion in the coming years.

Generate Biomedicines has closed a giant $370 million Series B from founding investor Flagship as well as Alaska Permanent Fund, Altitude Life Science Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, the company said.

By most accounts, the biotech sector has boomed throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly for companies looking to go public through a traditional IPO or the ever-more-popular SPAC route. But as one Flagship biotech found out, some of the luster might be wearing off.

Valo Health and its SPAC partner, the first of Khosla Ventures’ three blank check companies, called off their merger late Monday in a statement citing only the vague “current market conditions” as the reason. The termination came just one day before a shareholder meeting where a vote on the merger was expected.

Demand for life science real estate is surging in China — and one of Asia’s largest investment groups is rising to the call.

CBC Group — the startup engine that recently lured in Merck’s former R&D chief Roger Perlmutter — is joining forces with Netherlands Pension provider APG Asset Management to launch a new Asia-Pacific healthcare platform and China-focused life science venture.

The fund, dubbed CBC China Life Science Infrastructure Venture (CLSIV), completed a first close of $500 million to provide “best-in-class facilities” for research in China. CBC describes it as the vehicle by which the platform, CBC Healthcare Infrastructure Platform (CBC HIP), will operate.

A new biotech going after STAT mutations through a previously undruggable target emerged from stealth and secured its first fundraise Monday, introducing its freshly minted CEO in the process.

Recludix Pharma, a San Diego biotech launched by a founding team of Blueprint Medicines vets, pulled in a $60 million Series A on Monday, promising investors a path to the holy grail STAT3 mutation through what’s called the SH2 domain. Taking over as chief executive is Nancy Whiting, arriving after a 15-year run at Seagen that saw her run corporate strategy and late-stage development at various points.

Pierluigi Paracchi, CEO and one of the trio of leaders running gene therapy biotech Genenta, has frequently lamented the absence of Italian biotechs on Nasdaq. And now, he’s taking his Milan-based company and jumping out in front of what he hopes someday will be a pack of biotechs going public in the US.

The Italian biotech has been busy recently with Phase I/II trials on their investigational glioblastoma candidate Temferon — and it’s looking to expand with an IPO. The six-year-old small biotech, founded out of the renowned San Raffaele Hospital in Milan — led by a biotech executive, a noted academic and a physician — filed a Form F-1 with the SEC on Tuesday, penciling in a planned raise of $35 million, though that’s been known to change in the leadup to the flip onto Wall Street.