When Aard­vark Ther­a­peu­tics CEO Tien Lee start­ed his work on the biotech’s lead can­di­date, ap­petite sup­pres­sion was the goal for the small mol­e­cule.  Soon af­ter, his team start­ed to see added ben­e­fits with low­er blood glu­cose lev­els and an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry ac­tiv­i­ty. On the tail end of that, the com­pa­ny has emerged from stealth mode and an­nounced to­day that they’ve raised enough cash in the B round to cov­er mid-stage de­vel­op­ment work.

San Diego-based Aard­vark has se­cured $29 mil­lion in Se­ries B fi­nanc­ing. The mon­ey will be used to com­plete three Phase II tri­als of its lead com­pound ARD-101, a small mol­e­cule bit­ter taste re­cep­tor pan-ag­o­nist.  The funds will al­so be used to ad­vance ad­di­tion­al for­mu­la­tions for the can­di­date.

The fundrais­ing was led by Sor­ren­to Ther­a­peu­tics and fea­tured par­tic­i­pa­tion from Vick­ers Ven­ture Part­ners, Pre­mier Part­ners, BNH In­vest­ment, and Ko­rea Omega. The Foun­da­tion for Prad­er-Willi Re­search par­tic­i­pat­ed as well, which is key be­cause a Phase II tri­al in pa­tients with Prad­er-Willi Syn­drome is set to kick off lat­er this year. PWS is a ge­net­ic dis­or­der that leads pa­tients to be­come con­stant­ly hun­gry. That can of­ten lead to obe­si­ty and type 2 di­a­betes.

“I think we’re re­al­ly on to some­thing,” Lee said in a call with End­points News Wednes­day. “There are a few com­pa­nies that have looked in­to this space be­fore but no one has re­al­ly delved in and tried to ex­ploit this gut-brain path­way us­ing bit­ter taste re­cep­tors.”

ARD-101 has shown pos­i­tive ef­fects against obe­si­ty, hy­per­pha­gia, di­a­betes, hy­per­lipi­demia and in­flam­ma­tion in an­i­mal mod­els so far.

The drug uti­lizes bit­ter taste re­cep­tors, which Lee says are not on­ly in the mouth, but all over the body, and act as na­ture’s way of pro­tect­ing you against tox­ins. Over 99% of the drug is re­tained in the gut, which nor­mal­ly could be a bad thing for small mol­e­cules, but in this case, it ac­ti­vates en­teroen­docrine cells in the gut. When giv­en through an IV, the can­di­date doesn’t work the same, Lee said.

Aard­vark raised $10 mil­lion dur­ing its Se­ries A fundrais­ing two years ago, and that mon­ey was used to bring the can­di­date to in-hu­man tri­als. While the $29 mil­lion will more than cov­er the com­ple­tion of three Phase II tri­al, there is a lot more op­por­tu­ni­ty on the hori­zon, Lee said. The in­tent is to de­vel­op be­yond PWS in the long term, but for now it’s fo­cused on tak­ing a shot at an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for the ge­net­ic dis­ease — a goal that has elud­ed oth­ers.

“The main qual­i­ty of life im­pair­ment for Prad­er-Willi Syn­drome is an un­abat­ed ap­petite, says the CEO. “These kids, if giv­en un­re­strict­ed food ac­cess, they eat to the point of stom­ach rup­ture some­times. We have a lot of di­a­betes and obe­si­ty re­lat­ed com­pli­ca­tions in young adult­hood, and the fact that we’re hit­ting a va­ri­ety of hor­mones, we think we’re able to shut down ap­petite in a very unique way. We’ll see. Bi­ol­o­gy is hard and we’re not mak­ing any promis­es, but we’re def­i­nite­ly very hope­ful that we can see a dif­fer­ence for these kids.”

With rumors swirling about a potential buyout of biotech Acceleron and its lead PAH drug sotatercept, market watchers have been keeping close tabs on industry movers and shakers due up for an expensive bolt-on. According to a new report, it appears Merck may be the one.

Merck is in “advanced talks” on a deal to acquire Cambridge, MA-based Acceleron in what previous reports pegged as a potential $11 billion buyout, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. A deal could come as early as this week, according to the Journal.

Licensing is one of the most common ways big drugmakers leverage biotech innovation to drive gains across their pipelines — and the structure of those deals is pretty well established. But one biotech with home bases in China and the US thinks it may have a better way.

On Tuesday, Cambridge-based biotech Anji Pharma closed a $70 million Series B with two late-stage molecules in the fold and a mission to rewrite the rules of drug licensing through what it calls “dynamic equity” deals and a joint venture-heavy game plan. The round was funded in whole by Chinese hedge fund CR Capital.

Pfizer and BioNTech said Tuesday they submitted to FDA positive data from a Phase II/III trial of their Covid-19 vaccine in children aged 5 to less than 12 years old.

A formal EUA submission for the vaccine in these children is expected to follow “in the coming weeks,” the companies said in a statement.

The trial of 2,268 healthy participants aged 5 to less than 12 years old showed the vaccine was safe and elicited robust neutralizing antibody responses using a two-dose regimen of 10 μg doses, which is one-third the dose that’s administered to adults.

Sanofi is throwing in the towel on mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines.

The French drugmaker will halt development on its unmodified mRNA Covid-19 shot despite what it said were positive Phase I/II results, a spokesperson told Endpoints News on Tuesday morning. Sanofi said the reason it’s stopping the Covid-19 mRNA program, developed in partnership with its new $3.2 billion acquisition Translate Bio, is because the market is too crowded.