Genentech and Biogen roll the dice on an upstart biotech with a new siRNA approach — going deep into the brain for targets in neurodegeneration

Alicia Secor (Atalanta)

January 11, 2021 06:01 AM ESTUpdated 08:28 AM

Genentech and Biogen roll the dice on an upstart biotech with a new siRNA approach — going deep into the brain for targets in neurodegeneration

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Atalanta isn’t your average stealth biotech making a debut. They have some history and deals to sketch out in rough outlines.

The founding execs date the silent launch all the way back to mid-2019, with the publication of a seminal study looking at a new siRNA strategy for neurodegeneration. And instead of scouting for their first partners, the fledgling biotech can already count 2 prominent players as allies in the extensive preclinical work that’s been done to establish the platform.

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Biotech investors and CEOs see two paths to growth, but are they equally viable?

Noël Brown

Head of US Biotechnology Investment Banking, RBC Capital Markets

The dynamic in the biotech market has been highly volatile in the last few years, from the high peaks immediately after the COVID vaccine in 2021, to the lowest downturns of the last 20 years in 2022. This uncertainty makes calling the exact timing of the market’s turn something of a fool’s errand, according to Dr. Chen Yu, Founder and Managing Partner of TCG Crossover (TCG X). He speaks with RBC’s Noël Brown, Head of US Biotechnology Investment Banking, about the market’s road ahead and two possible paths for growth.

Casey McPherson shows his daughters Rose (left) and Weston around Everlum Bio, a lab that he co-founded to spark a treatment for Rose and others with ultra-rare conditions. (Ilana Panich-Linsman)

October 4, 2022 06:00 AM EDTUpdated 11:21 AM

People

Pharma

In Focus

Father starts lab after intellectual property issues stymie rare disease drug development

Jared Whitlock

Features Editor

Under bright lab lights, Casey McPherson holds his 6-year-old daughter, Rose. His free hand directs Rose’s gaze toward a computer screen with potential clues in treating her one-of-a kind genetic condition.

Gray specks on the screen show her cells that scientists reprogrammed with the goal of zeroing in on a custom medicine. McPherson co-founded the lab, Everlum Bio, to spark a treatment for Rose — and others like her. A regarded singer-songwriter, McPherson never imagined going into drug development.

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Fireside chat between Hal Barron and John Carroll, UKBIO19

October 5, 2022 07:38 AM EDT

Bioregnum

It’s time we talked about biopharma — live in London next week

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Zoom can only go so far. And I think at this stage, we’ve all tested the limits of staying in touch — virtually. So I’m particularly happy now that we’ve revved up the travel machine to point myself to London for the first time in several years.

Whatever events we have lined up, we’ve always built in plenty of opportunities for all of us to get together and talk. For London, live, I plan to be right out front, meeting with and chatting with the small crowd of biopharma people we are hosting on October 12 at Silicon Valley Bank’s London headquarters. And there’s a lengthy mixer at the end I’m most looking forward to, with several networking openings between sessions.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Senior Quality Assurance Compliance Specialist

Lonza

Houston, TX, USA

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October 4, 2022 10:00 AM EDTUpdated 10 hours ago

Manufacturing

Takeda to pull key hypoparathyroidism drug from the market after years of manufacturing woes

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

Takeda on Tuesday morning made an announcement that almost 3,000 people with the rare disease known as hypoparathyroidism were fearing.

Due to unresolved supply issues and manufacturing woes, Takeda said it will cut its losses and discontinue its hypoparathyroidism drug, known as Natpara (parathyroid hormone), halting all manufacturing of the drug by the end of 2024, but the entire inventory will be available until depleted or expired, a company spokesperson said via email.

Pfizer and BioNTech's original Marvel comic book links evolving Covid vaccine science to Avengers' evolving villain-fighting tools.(Source: Pfizer LinkedIn post)

October 5, 2022 02:23 PM EDT

Pharma

Marketing

Pfizer, BioNTech partner with Marvel for Avengers and Covid-fighting comic book

Beth Snyder Bulik

Senior Editor

Pfizer and BioNTech are collaborating with Marvel to celebrate “everyday” people getting Covid-19 vaccines in a custom comic book.

In the “Everyday Heroes” digital comic book, an evolving Ultron, one of the Avengers’ leading villains, is defeated by Captain America, Ironman and others. The plotline and history of Ultron is explained by a grandfather who is waiting with his family at a clinic for Covid-19 vaccinations.

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Valitor CEO Steven Lo (L) and president and CSO Wesley Jackson

October 5, 2022 09:01 AM EDT

Financing

Startups

A dozen years in the making, a UC Berkeley spinout nabs funds to take on the eye

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

Largely funded by government grants for the better part of its first decade, a UC Berkeley spinout has secured a new CEO and the funds to take its research into the clinic in early 2024.

The biotech, named by one of the co-founder’s daughters and originally scrapped together with NIH funds in the aftermath of the 2008-09 financial crisis, is also on a mission to upend the treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, with an injectable drug that it claims could be more durable than the “800-pound gorilla” in the room, Genentech’s Lucentis and Regeneron/Bayer’s Eylea.

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October 5, 2022 11:28 AM EDTUpdated 06:04 PM

FDA+

FDA+ roundup: Adcomm date set for Cytokinetics heart drug; New generic drug guidance to reduce facility delays

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

The FDA has set Dec. 13 as the day that its Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee will review Cytokinetics’ potential heart drug, setting up a key vote ahead of a Feb. 28, 2023 PDUFA date.

The drug, known as omecamtiv mecarbil, read out its first Phase III in 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 the key to breaking into the market, failing to significantly differ in reducing cardiovascular death from placebo.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Head of Quality Systems

Lonza

Lexington, MA, USA

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October 5, 2022 10:23 AM EDT

Financing

Pharma

Coronavirus

After Covid setback, Valneva lines up $100M for Pfizer-allied Lyme disease PhIII

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

Valneva has secured €102.9 million (around $99.9 million USD) in a share offering to push forward its Pfizer-partnered Lyme disease vaccine and a jab for chikungunya that awaits an FDA decision.

The French vaccine maker largely snagged the near $100 million from Deep Track Capital and local state-owned Bpifrance, the company said Tuesday night. The capital injection is nearly equal to the amount Pfizer paid to nab equity in the company earlier this summer as part of the duo’s vaccine tie-up.

Carolyn Bertozzi (Illustration: Assistant editor Kathy Wong for Endpoints News)

October 5, 2022 07:43 AM EDTUpdated 11:03 AM

People

Carolyn Bertozzi, repeat biotech founder and launcher of a field, shares in chemistry Nobel win

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

Carolyn Bertozzi, predicted by some to become a Nobel laureate, clinched one of the world’s top awards in the wee hours of Wednesday, winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside a repeat winner and a Copenhagen researcher.

The Stanford professor, Morten Meldal of University of Copenhagen and 2001-awardee K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps shared the prize equally. The Nobel is sometimes split in quarters and/or halves.