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Josep Bassaganya-Riera, NImmune Biopharma

Ex­clu­sive: Af­ter get­ting his drug back, Lan­dos founder as­sem­bles new start­up for the big PhI­II test

By the time Josep Bassaganya-Riera stepped down as founding CEO of Landos Biopharma in 2021, the company had racked up Phase II data for its top autoimmune program, completed what he called a positive end-of-Phase-II meeting with the FDA and plans to launch pivotal Phase III trials.

Since then, though, the new leaders at Landos have reshuffled their plans for the drug, omilancor, first announcing they will run a Phase IIb ahead of a Phase III and eventually shelving it altogether.

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Francesco Marincola, newly-appointed Sonata Therapeutics CSO

Kite's head of re­search leaves for Flag­ship start­up Sonata

Another leader is departing Kite Pharma, and will to spend the “last part” of his career exploring how cancer evades the immune system.

Kite’s senior VP and global head of cell therapy research Francesco Marincola left the Gilead CAR-T unit last week for Sonata Therapeutics. Flagship last May unveiled the startup, which was pieced together from two fledgling biotechs Inzen and Cygnal Therapeutics. As CSO, Marincola will lead Sonata’s push to reprogram cancer cells to make them more immunogenic.

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Seamless Therapeutics CEO Anne-Kristin Heninger and CSO Felix Lansing

Ger­man biotech launch­es with ‘seam­less’ gene edit­ing plat­form built on evolv­ing en­zymes

Seamless Therapeutics has launched with €11.8 million (roughly $12.5 million) in seed funding to build out a gene editing platform.

As more and more gene editing techniques are being developed — starting with CRISPR/Cas9 to base and prime editing, and more recently, PASTE — Seamless is trying to evolve, literally, an approach that dates back decades.

The Dresden, Germany-based startup is developing so-called “designer recombinases” that can potentially edit large chunks of genes. Recombinases are enzymes that can excise, invert, or even insert a DNA sequence, but typically they only work via very specific target sequences. However, by continuously evolving these recombinases, Seamless is trying to develop recombinases that work at the sequences it wants — those that are found in human genes.

Mediar Therapeutics CEO Rahul Ballal (L) and CSO Paul Yaworsky

Five phar­mas back $85M Se­ries A for Me­di­ar's fi­bro­sis-mod­u­lat­ing an­ti­bod­ies

Mediar Therapeutics nabbed $85 million to get in the clinic next year with its first antibody meant to modulate fibrosis, hence the biotech’s name (in the form of Spanish).

The Cambridge, MA startup aims to create more precise treatments for fibrosis by going after targets associated with disease severity and that can be measured in plasma, CEO Rahul Ballal told Endpoints News. Ballal said the biotech is exploring a number of indications as fibrosis spans many areas: liver, lung, renal and cardiac.

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Members of the Switch Therapeutics team (L-R): Discovery biology director Lisa Scherer, CEO Dee Datta and chief technology officer Si-ping Han

Eli Lil­ly, UCB and oth­ers Switch in­to gear with $52M for new RNA biotech

South San Francisco biotech Switch Therapeutics unwrapped Tuesday morning with $52 million to finance conditionally activated siRNA molecules.

As its name suggests, the startup said it can switch on the molecules only in selected cells so they’re more precise than other RNAi approaches and can potentially be effective for longer periods. The biotech will start in the central nervous system and consider expanding its use in other disease areas through the help of potential pharma collaborators, CEO Dee Datta told Endpoints News.

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Carl Icahn (Heidi Gutman/CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

Up­dat­ed: Carl Ic­ahn pro­pos­es three new Il­lu­mi­na board mem­bers in proxy fight

A proxy fight is brewing at Illumina as activist investor Carl Icahn argues that the DNA sequencing giant is costing shareholders billions by following through with its Grail purchase amid antirust challenges.

In a letter to Illumina shareholders on Monday morning, Icahn stated that $50 billion of value has been wiped from the company’s market capitalization since August 2021.

“This value destruction is a direct result of a series of ill-advised (and frankly inexplicable) actions taken by the board of directors of our company in connection with the acquisition of GRAIL, Inc.,” Icahn wrote. “To paraphrase William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, something is rotten in the state of Illumina.”

Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank cus­tomers to have all funds ac­ces­si­ble, US says, eas­ing biotech and tech tur­moil

Silicon Valley Bank customers will have access to 100% of their deposit funds starting Monday, the US Federal Reserve Board announced Sunday evening, potentially ending days of chaos and uncertainty for the biotech and tech sectors that relied heavily on the failed bank.

“Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday,” the Fed said in its statement. It didn’t provide more details, though there were reports from Bloomberg News and others that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was seeking a corporate buyer for the bank, with final bids due Sunday evening.

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Peter Emtage, Santa Ana Bio CEO (Versant)

Ver­san­t's new im­munol­o­gy biotech San­ta Ana Bio snags Se­ries A with GV, TPG part­ners on board

Prolific biotech investor Versant Ventures is brewing another startup, this time immunology player Santa Ana Bio, whose board includes partners from GV and TPG.

On its website, the California biotech says it has recently closed a Series A financing. An SEC filing from last month outlined plans for a $70 million round after seeking a $42 million equity raise in 2021.

The company, led by CEO Peter Emtage, declined an interview and said it will come out of stealth later this year.

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QurAlis chief scientific officer Dan Elbaum (center) works with researchers in the ALS biotech’s Cambridge, MA lab.

ALS biotech QurAlis gets $88M boost from four phar­mas for pair of PhI stud­ies

QurAlis picked up $88 million for two Phase I studies, hoping to ride regulatory waves driven by the recent FDA approval of Amylyx Pharmaceuticals’ ALS therapy.

Four biopharmas — Eli Lilly, Amgen, Sanofi and Mitsubishi Tanabe’s VC arm — are bankrolling a Series B for the biotech from Harvard stem cell pioneers Kevin Eggan and Clifford Woolf. In December, the startup began in-human trials of two therapeutics for patients with certain types of the progressive muscle weakness disease, which comes with a short life expectancy.

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Avak Kahvejian, Flagship Pioneering general partner

Am­per­sand snags $50M as Flag­ship fo­cus­es ther­a­peu­tics on de­sired tar­gets on­ly 

The behemoth biotech creator Flagship Pioneering is out with another startup aiming to achieve the crown jewel of drug development: treatments that hit only the desired target and cause no unwanted effects elsewhere.

Ampersand Biomedicines is the Boston incubator’s latest biotech to open its blinds, with Flagship dishing out a $50 million check to bankroll initial work.

Leading the charge at Ampersand is Flagship general partner Avak Kahvejian, who’s also founding CEO of ProFound Therapeutics and has been involved in the early days of multiple other companies formed by the engine that sparked Moderna.