Build­ing off the suc­cess of the De­fense Ad­vanced Re­search Pro­jects Agency across the pond, the UK on Tues­day ap­point­ed DARPA deputy Pe­ter High­nam as chief ex­ec­u­tive of the UK’s new Ad­vanced Re­search and In­ven­tion Agency.

With £800 mil­lion ($1 bil­lion) in fund­ing, ARIA and High­nam will fo­cus ex­clu­sive­ly on re­search projects with far-reach­ing goals, with the “po­ten­tial to pro­duce trans­for­ma­tive tech­no­log­i­cal change, or a par­a­digm-shift in an area of sci­ence,” the UK gov­ern­ment ex­plained, not­ing that most pro­grams may fail.

UK-born and ed­u­cat­ed High­nam, who lists “R&D that makes a dif­fer­ence” in his about sec­tion on LinkedIn, has spent more than a decade work­ing for the US gov­ern­ment, with stints at BAR­DA, NIH, as well as di­rec­tor of the In­tel­li­gence Ad­vanced Re­search Pro­jects Ac­tiv­i­ty and di­rec­tor of re­search at Na­tion­al Geospa­tial-In­tel­li­gence Agency.

Kwasi Kwarteng

“Pe­ter High­nam’s ap­point­ment is a ma­jor tri­umph for the UK. His ex­pert di­rec­tion will lead the agency’s for­ma­tion, en­sur­ing the fund­ing of high-risk pro­grammes that will con­tin­ue to push the bound­aries of sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy,” UK busi­ness sec­re­tary Kwasi Kwarteng said in a state­ment.

But his new role will be dif­fer­ent from his work at BAR­DA.

While Amer­i­ca’s DARPA, which High­nam spent his last four years at, pur­sues a range of tech ad­vances tied to De­part­ment of De­fense ob­jec­tives, “ARIA will de­part from the DARPA mod­el, but align with oth­er ARPA-in­spired bod­ies around the world such as Ger­many’s SPRIN-D and Japan’s Moon­shot R&D. We want to leave the door open to ARIA to forge links with mul­ti­ple gov­ern­ment de­part­ment cus­tomers, un­lock­ing new ways to tack­le a range of so­ci­etal prob­lems, and boost­ing UK in­dus­try in a range of sec­tors,” the UK gov­ern­ment said.

The gov­ern­ment al­so said it has com­mit­ted to in­creas­ing pub­lic in­vest­ment in R&D to £20 bil­lion ($27 bil­lion) in 2024-2025, and ARIA “will be an in­te­gral and in­valu­able part” of this ecosys­tem, the gov­ern­ment said.

The UK is still search­ing for ARIA’s first chair, as well, who will sup­port High­nam to de­sign and build ARIA from the ground up.

The first batch of pivotal data on Autolus Therapeutics’ CAR-T is in, and execs are ready to plot a path to market.

With an overall remission rate of 70% at the interim analysis featuring 50 patients, the results set the stage for a BLA filing by the end of 2023, said CEO Christian Itin.

Perhaps more importantly — given that Autolus’ drug, obe-cel, is going after an indication that Gilead’s Tecartus is already approved for — the biotech highlighted “encouraging safety data” in the trial, with a low percentage of patients experiencing severe immune responses.

The FDA’s Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee will meet next Tuesday to discuss whether Cytokinetics’ potential heart drug can safely reduce the risk of cardiovascular death and heart failure in patients with symptomatic chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.

The drug, known as omecamtiv mecarbil and in development for more than 15 years, has seen mixed results, with a first Phase III readout from November 2020 hitting the primary endpoint of reducing the odds of hospitalization or other urgent care for heart failure by 8%. But it also missed a key secondary endpoint analysts had pegged as key to breaking into the market.

Add AbbVie to the list of pharma companies currently facing age discrimination allegations.

Pennsylvania resident Thomas Hesch filed suit against AbbVie on Wednesday, accusing the company of passing him over for promotions in favor of younger candidates.

Despite 30 years of pharma experience, “Hesch has consistently seen younger, less qualified employees promoted over him,” the complaint states.