Rachel Meyers (Marissa Fiorucci/Faze Medicines)

Faze Med­i­cines launch­es with $81M Se­ries A, Al­ny­lam vet head­ing sci­ence in play at bio­mol­e­c­u­lar con­den­sates

Once most­ly un­known to the larg­er sci­en­tif­ic world, the field of bio­mol­e­c­u­lar con­den­sates — cel­lu­lar struc­tures that could have big im­pli­ca­tions on neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive re­search — has seen a rush of in­vestor cash in the past two years. Now, a third biotech is tak­ing a swing at the field with a siz­able ini­tial fund­ing round to get go­ing.

Faze Med­i­cines, a Third Rock-backed biotech look­ing to de­vel­op med­i­cines tar­get­ing neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases and po­ten­tial­ly even more ther­a­peu­tic ar­eas, launched Thurs­day with an $81 mil­lion Se­ries A round and Al­ny­lam vet­er­an Rachel Mey­ers head­ing up the sci­ence.

Found­ed by four in­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Howard Hugh­es Med­ical In­sti­tute in Mary­land — Roy Park­er, Mike Rosen, J. Paul Tay­lor and Ron Vale — Faze will cen­ter its sci­ence around bio­mol­e­c­u­lar con­den­sates, mem­brane­less com­part­ments in eu­kary­ot­ic cells that con­cen­trate pro­teins and nu­cle­ic acids and could play a role in RNA me­tab­o­lism and gene reg­u­la­tion.

Roy Park­er, Mike Rosen, J. Paul Tay­lor, Ron Vale (HH­MI)

Third Rock joins No­var­tis Ven­ture Fund, Eli Lil­ly, Ab­b­Vie Ven­tures, In­vus, Catalio Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, Cas­din Cap­i­tal and Alexan­dria Ven­ture In­vest­ments on the round. Faze will run with a board of di­rec­tors led by biotech vet Charles Hom­cy, a Third Rock part­ner and clin­i­cal pro­fes­sor of med­i­cine at UCSF, as well as Bob Tep­per, an­oth­er Third Rock part­ner, and Lau­ra Brass of the No­var­tis Ven­ture Fund.

The com­pa­ny will al­so sport a stout sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board culled from lead­ers in drug dis­cov­ery and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive re­search, in­clud­ing: Richard Chesworth, chief sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer at Kymera Ther­a­peu­tics; Jim Au­dia, a for­mer CSO at Con­stel­la­tion Phar­ma who is now an ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor at the Chica­go Bio­med­ical Con­sor­tium; and Mer­it Cud­kow­icz, chief at neu­rol­o­gy at Mass Gen­er­al; among oth­ers.

Mey­ers, who spent more than 13 years at Al­ny­lam head­ing re­search on the drug­mak­er’s RNAi-based ther­a­peu­tics, left the com­pa­ny back in 2016 to be a con­sul­tant in the Cam­bridge area. In 2018, she joined Third Rock as an en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence and was im­me­di­ate­ly keyed in to dis­cus­sions around the role of un­bound struc­tures in hu­man cells that could be im­pli­cat­ed in a range of puz­zle-box neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases.

Those con­ver­sa­tions were tak­ing place in Third Rock’s halls, Mey­ers said, be­tween Hom­cy and Vale, al­so a UCSF pro­fes­sor. The dis­cus­sion orig­i­nal­ly cir­cled around the role of pro­tein con­cen­trat­ing RNA struc­tures in the cell that could be causal­ly re­lat­ed to re­peat ex­pan­sion dis­or­ders like ALS and my­oton­ic dy­s­tro­phy 1.

“That ini­tial con­ver­sa­tion led to in­ter­est in think­ing about how these RNA pro­tein struc­tures were in­volved in bi­ol­o­gy and in­volved in dis­ease,” Mey­ers said. “Ul­ti­mate­ly, we got ex­cit­ed about this no­tion of con­den­sates and start­ed ex­pand­ing this think­ing around re­peat RNAs to be­gin think­ing about the ways that RNA pro­tein struc­tures were in­volved in bi­ol­o­gy and dis­ease.”

Cary Pf­ef­fer

In the im­me­di­ate term, Faze’s team will fo­cus on those con­den­sates to de­vel­op mol­e­cules for neu­ro, but the goal­posts could even­tu­al­ly move in­to spaces like on­col­o­gy, vi­rol­o­gy and im­munol­o­gy as the sci­ence de­vel­ops, in­ter­im CEO and Third Rock part­ner Cary Pf­ef­fer told End­points News. That sort of clin­i­cal po­ten­tial is what helped bring Faze’s big-name in­vestors on board, Pf­ef­fer said, along­side Faze’s ear­ly in­vest­ment in its clin­i­cal plat­form.

“I think we can pre­dict that a few years from now, there will be al­most every in­di­ca­tion that is touched by the bi­ol­o­gy of bio­mol­e­c­u­lar con­den­sates so that sug­gests to us ac­cess points to many, many more dis­eases over time,” Mey­ers said. “What we’re ex­cit­ed about is the clues, and the ways dis­eases are con­nect­ed.”

Based in Cam­bridge, MA, the Faze team of 12 will work to “dri­ve to­ward de­vel­op­ment can­di­dates” as it looks for a lat­er en­try in­to the clin­ic, Pf­ef­fer said. The com­pa­ny will al­so keep build­ing its “prod­uct en­gine,” in­clud­ing the di­ag­nos­tic as­says used for prod­uct de­vel­op­ment. On­ly one pro­gram is cur­rent­ly in ac­tive de­vel­op­ment, but Pf­ef­fer said even more are ap­proach­ing that stage in the near team.

Pf­ef­fer — in what is a typ­i­cal process for Third Rock — will hold the in­ter­im CEO role un­til Faze hires a per­ma­nent re­place­ment. In terms of who the biotech could hire to the helm, Pf­ef­fer was mum.

“At the end of the day, great CEOs come in all stripes and col­ors,” Pf­ef­fer said. “There’s a lot of com­po­nents that go in­to it … we have a great track record of bring­ing on CEOs at our com­pa­ny, and that’s what we’re go­ing to do here.”

In set­ting up shop to chase bio­mol­e­c­u­lar con­den­sates, Faze will be run­ning along­side two re­cent en­tries in the space. In No­vem­ber, Nereid launched with a $50 mil­lion Se­ries A look­ing to chal­lenge Dew­point Ther­a­peu­tics, the first and on­ly biotech fo­cus­ing on bio­mol­e­c­u­lar con­den­sates be­fore Nereid’s en­try.

Dew­point it­self launched un­der the lead­er­ship of Po­laris Part­ners man­ag­ing part­ner Amir Nashat back in Jan­u­ary 2019 with $60 mil­lion and 15 staffers. That first-in-the-field launch came with some pret­ty big names on board, in­clud­ing ubiq­ui­tous MIT gi­ant Bob Langer and in­vestors in Sam­sara Bio­Cap­i­tal, 6 Di­men­sions Cap­i­tal, EcoR1 Cap­i­tal, Alexan­dria Ven­ture In­vest­ments, and Leaps by Bay­er.

Ed­i­tor’s Note: This sto­ry has been up­dat­ed to cor­rect an er­ror. The biotech com­pa­ny’s name is Faze Med­i­cines.

Forge Bi­o­log­ics’ cGMP Com­pli­ant and Com­mer­cial­ly Vi­able Be­spoke Affin­i­ty Chro­matog­ra­phy Plat­form

Forge Biologics has developed a bespoke affinity chromatography platform approach that factors in unique vector combinations to streamline development timelines and assist our clients in efficiently entering the clinic. By leveraging our experience with natural and novel serotypes and transgene conformations, we are able to accelerate affinity chromatography development by nearly 3-fold. Many downstream purification models are serotype-dependent, demanding unique and time-consuming development strategies for each AAV gene therapy product1. With the increasing demand to propel AAV gene therapies to market, platform purification methods that support commercial-scale manufacturing of high-quality vectors with excellent safety and efficacy profiles are essential.

Feng Zhang (Susan Walsh/AP Images)

In search of new way to de­liv­er gene ed­i­tors, CRISPR pi­o­neer turns to mol­e­c­u­lar sy­ringes

Bug bacteria are ruthless.

Some soil bacteria have evolved tiny, but deadly injection systems that attach to insect cells, perforate them and release toxins inside — killing a bug in just a few days’ time. Scientists, on the other hand, want to leverage that system to deliver medicines.

In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, MIT CRISPR researcher Feng Zhang and his lab describe how they engineered these syringes made by bacteria to deliver potential therapies like toxins that kill cancer cells and gene editors. With the help of an AI program, they developed syringes that can load proteins of their choice and selectively target human cells.

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Mathai Mammen, FogPharma's next CEO

Math­ai Mam­men hands in J&J's R&D keys to lead Greg Ver­dine’s Fog­Phar­ma 

In the early 1990s, Mathai Mammen was a teaching assistant in Greg Verdine’s Science B46 course at Harvard. In June, the former R&D head at Johnson & Johnson will succeed Verdine as CEO, president and chair of FogPharma, the same month the seven-year-old biotech kickstarts its first clinical trial.

After leading R&D at one of the largest drugmakers in the world, taking the company through more than half a dozen drug approvals in the past few years, not to mention a Covid-19 vaccine race, Mammen departed J&J last month and will take the helm of a Cambridge, MA biotech attempting to go after what Verdine calls the “true emperor of all oncogenes” — beta-catenin.

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Dif­fu­sion to hand Nas­daq spot to EIP Phar­ma for PhI­Ib de­men­tia study of ex-Ver­tex drug

One of the more than a dozen bidders for Diffusion Pharmaceuticals’ spot on Nasdaq has prevailed.

Boston biotech EIP Pharma will merge with Diffusion in an all-stock deal, with plans to start a Phase IIb clinical trial in the coming months in a common form of dementia with no approved treatments. The combined company will be renamed CervoMed.

The nine-year-old privately-held EIP is working on a former Vertex drug that it will test in a 160-person Phase IIb in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies, or DLB. The National Institute on Aging is expected to fund that trial with a $21 million grant. With the reverse merger, slated for closing in the middle of this year, EIP will be funded through that readout in the second half of 2024. EIP’s equity and debt holders will own about 77.25% of the combined company.

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Jeff Bluestone (R), Sonoma Biotherapeutics CEO

Jef­frey Blue­stone brings his start­up haul to $400M+, join­ing forces with Re­gen­eron on cell ther­a­pies

These days, when Jeffrey Bluestone gets together with his contemporaries in science, the conversation often turns to retirement plans.

But a little more than three years ago, Bluestone reached a momentous turning point in his career, exiting a prestigious post at UCSF, where he had spent decades in the scientific pursuit of new therapies. And it had nothing to do with retirement anytime in the near future.

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Luke Miels, GSK chief commercial officer

GSK picks up Scynex­is' FDA-ap­proved an­ti­fun­gal drug for $90M up­front

GSK is dishing out $90 million cash to add an antifungal drug to its commercial portfolio, in a deal spotlighting the pharma giant’s growing focus on infectious diseases.

The upfront will lock in an exclusive license to Scynexis’ Brexafemme, which was approved in 2021 to treat a yeast infection known as vulvovaginal candidiasis, except in China and certain other countries where Scynexis already out-licensed the drug.

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CSL CEO Paul McKenzie (L) and CMO Bill Mezzanotte

Q&A: New­ly-mint­ed CSL chief ex­ec­u­tive Paul McKen­zie and chief med­ical of­fi­cer Bill Mez­zan­otte

Paul McKenzie took over as CEO of Australian pharma giant CSL this month, following in the footsteps of long-time CSL vet Paul Perreault.

With an eye on mRNA, and quickly commercializing its new, $3.5 million-per-shot gene therapy for hemophilia B, McKenzie and chief medical officer Bill Mezzanotte answered some questions from Endpoints News this afternoon about where McKenzie is going to take the company and what advances may be coming to market from CSL’s pipeline. Below is a lightly edited transcript.

UK gov­ern­ment, pri­vate in­vestors dole out $340M+ to drug, di­ag­nos­tic man­u­fac­tur­ers

The government of the United Kingdom is giving out grants to several manufacturers that have a presence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The government announced that four companies, including Ipsen, contract manufacturer Pharmaron, DNA manufacturer Touchlight and diagnostic test producer Randox, will receive a total of £277 million ($341.1 million). According to a release from the UK government, this represents the first portion of grants from the Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund.

Kourosh Davarpanah, Inato CEO

Big Phar­ma-part­nered clin­i­cal tri­al match­mak­er se­cures $20M to im­prove plat­form

A company with public links to Sanofi and Moderna has raised more money to expand its mission of improving diversity and enrollment in clinical trials.

Inato put the word out on Wednesday that it raised $20 million via an A2 round to advance its matching platform between pharma companies and potential clinical trial sites.

Inato CEO Kourosh Davarpanah told Endpoints News that with the $20 million in hand, it will pursue improvements to its diversity offerings, its focus on oncology and data collection.