Drag­on­fly Ther­a­peu­tics is do­ing bet­ter and bet­ter in get­ting Big Phar­ma on its TriN­KET plat­form. First Cel­gene, then BMS, and now Mer­ck — again.

Af­ter Mer­ck li­censed its first can­di­date from the plat­form back in No­vem­ber 2020, the phar­ma gi­ant is back for sec­onds as part of a 2018 col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the two com­pa­nies, which was ini­tial­ly fo­cused on a num­ber of sol­id tu­mor tar­gets.

The com­pa­nies ex­pand­ed their col­lab­o­ra­tion last year with an agree­ment to de­vel­op and com­mer­cial­ize NK cell en­gag­ing im­munother­a­pies for mul­ti­ple tar­gets in on­col­o­gy, in­fec­tious dis­eases and im­mune dis­or­ders.

“We are de­light­ed that Mer­ck has now ex­er­cised its op­tion for this sec­ond im­munother­a­py can­di­date from our ini­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion, and ex­cit­ed by the progress we are mak­ing to­geth­er on bring­ing Drag­on­fly’s TriN­KET tech­nol­o­gy to tar­gets across a broad­er set of dis­eases,” said Drag­on­fly’s CEO Bill Haney.

Mer­ck ex­er­cised its op­tion to li­cense ex­clu­sive world­wide in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty rights on its sec­ond im­munother­a­py can­di­date de­vel­oped us­ing the TriN­KET plat­form, un­der a pre-ex­ist­ing agree­ment. As for Drag­on­fly, it re­ceived an pay­ment from Mer­ck at an undis­closed amount.

Chi­nese eye dis­ease biotech Neu­roph­th rais­es $60M in Se­ries C to progress pipeline

Chi­nese eye dis­ease biotech Neu­roph­th Ther­a­peu­tics closed $60 mil­lion in a Se­ries C round, the com­pa­ny an­nounced to­day.

The round, co-led by CMG-SDIC Cap­i­tal and Se­quoia Cap­i­tal Chi­na, in­clud­ed new in­vest­ing funds and ac­counts man­aged by Sun­shine In­sur­ance and Chi­na Mer­chant Bank In­ter­na­tion­al Cap­i­tal.

Ac­cord­ing to Neu­roph­th, this round of fi­nanc­ing will be used to progress its lead clin­i­cal pro­gram in LHON (Leber Hered­i­tary Op­tic Neu­ropa­thy) out­side of Chi­na, im­prove its R&D pipeline and pro­grams through busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and ex­pand Neu­roph­th’s gene ther­a­py man­u­fac­tur­ing plat­form.

Neu­roph­th’s lead can­di­date NR082 was the first AAV2 gene ther­a­py to get IND ap­pli­ca­tion ap­proval in Chi­na, with the first pa­tient be­ing dosed in June.

“We are very pleased to have lead­ing Chi­na and ex-Chi­na in­vestors to sup­port the com­pa­ny mis­sion and vi­sion,” said Neu­roph­th chair­man and founder Bin Li.

Ieso rais­es $53M in Se­ries B to de­vel­op dig­i­tal ther­a­py sys­tems for men­tal health

UK-based dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics de­vel­op­er ieso has more mon­ey, thanks to lead in­vestor Morn­ing­side.

The com­pa­ny an­nounced to­day that it has fin­ished its Se­ries B round — with a to­tal of $53 mil­lion raised. Oth­er in­vestors that tagged along in­clude Sony In­no­va­tion Fund, IP Group and Molten Ven­tures.

The funds raised will help ieso de­vel­op au­tonomous dig­i­tal ther­a­py sys­tems to de­liv­er a high­er stan­dard of care — ones “that match the high stan­dards of hu­man care de­liv­ery,” ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny — at sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er cost to health sys­tems.

Ieso plans to de­vel­op these AI-en­abled dig­i­tal as­sess­ment tools and ther­a­peu­tics on their out­comes-linked ther­a­py dataset, which in­cludes at least 460,000 hours of in­for­ma­tion.

Ieso in­tends to seek reg­u­la­to­ry ap­proval for these dig­i­tal tools in the US and UK ahead of bring­ing them to mar­ket. And as part of the raise, ieso will ex­pand its com­mer­cial teams to the US and tar­get both co-de­vel­op­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion part­ner­ships.

“Through the sup­port of our in­vestors, who share our pur­pose, we’ll con­tin­ue on our mis­sion of com­bin­ing clin­i­cal ex­per­tise, da­ta sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy to en­able bet­ter and more ac­ces­si­ble men­tal health­care,” said ieso chair­man Andy Richards in a state­ment.

FDA ex­tends re­view for Am­ryt Phar­ma’s EB drug

Am­ryt Phar­ma an­nounced this morn­ing that the FDA has ex­tend­ed the re­view pe­ri­od for the NDA for its epi­der­mol­y­sis bul­losa (EB) treat­ment Oleogel-S10. EB, a rare ge­net­ic skin dis­or­der, has no ap­proved treat­ment.

The FDA ex­tend­ed the PDU­FA by three months to Feb­ru­ary 28 of next year. And ad­di­tion­al­ly, the FDA al­so is­sued a new In­for­ma­tion Re­quest re­gard­ing ex­ist­ing study da­ta in or­der to con­tin­ue the agency’s eval­u­a­tion of Am­ryt’s NDA.

Mean­while, across the At­lantic, the EMA’s re­view process for Oleogel-S10 in EB is on­go­ing — and Am­ryt is in the process of re­spond­ing to the re­main­ing Ma­jor Ob­jec­tions in the List of Out­stand­ing Is­sues sent by the EMA. Those ob­jec­tions re­main undis­closed. The CHMP opin­ion is ex­pect­ed in Jan­u­ary.

“We are well po­si­tioned to ad­dress these reg­u­la­to­ry re­quests from our ex­ist­ing da­ta with­in the time pe­ri­ods re­quired and we look for­ward to our con­tin­ued pro­duc­tive dis­cus­sions as the reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies com­plete their re­view,” said Am­ryt CEO Joe Wi­ley.