Jim Mellon [via YouTube]

Health­i­er, longer lifes­pans will be a re­al­i­ty soon­er than you think, Ju­ve­nes­cence promis­es as it clos­es $100M round

Ear­li­er this year, an ex­ec­u­tive from Ju­ve­nes­cence-backed AgeX pre­dict­ed the field of longevi­ty will even­tu­al­ly “dwarf the dot­com boom.” Greg Bai­ley, the UK-based an­ti-ag­ing biotech’s CEO, cer­tain­ly hopes so.

Gre­go­ry Bai­ley

On Mon­day, Ju­ve­nes­cence com­plet­ed its $100 mil­lion Se­ries B round of fi­nanc­ing. The com­pa­ny is backed by British bil­lion­aire Jim Mel­lon — who wrote his 400-page guide to in­vest­ing in the field of longevi­ty short­ly af­ter launch­ing the com­pa­ny in 2017. Bai­ley, who served as a board di­rec­tor for sev­en years at Medi­va­tion be­fore Pfiz­er swal­lowed the biotech for $14 bil­lion, is joined by De­clan Doogan, an in­dus­try vet­er­an with stints at Pfiz­er $PFE and Amarin $AM­RN.

The busi­ness of an­ti-ag­ing is gain­ing steam — Bank of Amer­i­ca has fore­cast the mar­ket will bal­loon to $610 bil­lion by 2025, from an es­ti­mat­ed $110 bil­lion cur­rent­ly — but in­vestors are cau­tious, Bai­ley not­ed in an in­ter­view with End­points News.

“I think there’s a huge amount of skep­ti­cism. There’s an enor­mous num­ber of char­la­tans…I un­der­stand why they would be think­ing you know, is this re­al?” he said. “(W)alk in­to your lo­cal drug­store, you’re go­ing to see about 50 prod­ucts that claim to be an­ti-ag­ing, and I can as­sure you that none of them are. So I think that there’s a healthy dose of skep­ti­cism.”

In­sti­tu­tions tend to move in lock­step when they’re in­vest­ing, he added.

“VCs are as­ton­ish­ing, you know, if one of them buys the yel­low hal­ter top, all of them have to buy a yel­low hal­ter top,” he said, quot­ing tech VC Tim Drap­er.

Bai­ley sug­gest­ed that in­vestors are not quite as en­thu­si­as­tic about plac­ing bets on an­ti-ag­ing, as they are in the tech world. “We’re dra­mat­i­cal­ly be­ing un­der­served…it’s not get­ting the ex­po­sure that tech gets, con­sid­er­ing the size of the mar­ket,” he said. “There is a dis­con­nect on what in­vestors — so­phis­ti­cat­ed in­vestors —  in­sti­tu­tions, how they’re view­ing this, I don’t think they quite grasp how fast this is go­ing to hap­pen, and how big it’s go­ing to be.”

Ju­ve­nes­cence has now raised $165 mil­lion in the last 18 months — in Jan­u­ary it un­veiled the first $46 mil­lion tranche of the Se­ries B — and the mon­ey is be­ing used to fund longevi­ty projects with the lofty goal of ex­tend­ing hu­man lifes­pans to 150 years.

It is a pop­u­lar vi­sion. In­spired by Mel­lon, ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist Sergey Young — who is in charge of all things longevi­ty at the non-prof­it XPRIZE and VC fund BOLD Cap­i­tal Part­ners — un­veiled a $100 mil­lion fund with the same goal in Feb­ru­ary. Google-owned stealthy biotech Cal­i­co is af­ter the same prize — and has part­nered with Ab­b­Vie $AB­BV.

Ju­ve­nes­cence has been busy, col­lab­o­rat­ing with dif­fer­ent groups and set­ting up JVs, such as Alex Zha­voronkov’s AI shop at In­sil­i­co Med­i­cine — and has in­vest­ed in firms in­clud­ing AgeX $AGE and Ly­Ge­n­e­sis. In Feb­ru­ary, Ju­ve­nes­cence de­buted an an­ti-ag­ing joint ven­ture with the Buck In­sti­tute ded­i­cat­ed to in­duc­ing ke­to­sis. In re­cent months, it spawned a new biotech called Sou­vien Ther­a­peu­tics, which is de­vel­op­ing med­i­cines to ad­dress the epi­ge­net­ic un­der­pin­nings of neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­eases, and in­ject­ed $6.5 mil­lion in eq­ui­ty fi­nanc­ing in­to a pre­clin­i­cal meta­bol­ic dis­ease biotech dubbed BY­OMass.

This quar­ter, Ju­ve­nes­cence plans to close three more projects, Bai­ley said. The com­pa­ny is work­ing on for­ti­fy­ing its ma­chine learn­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty to make sense of huge swathes of da­ta that could help iso­late path­ways to de­vel­op dis­ease-mod­i­fy­ing ther­a­peu­tics, as well as adding prod­ucts to pad its port­fo­lio. The idea is to pur­sue prod­ucts that ad­dress in­flam­ma­tion and fi­bro­sis to slow ag­ing.

Mean­while, the com­pa­ny will main­tain a fo­cus on re­gen­er­a­tion. “I’m mind­ful that if you live to 150, you know, peo­ple don’t want to be all wrin­kled, and in a wheel­chair. So what we want to be able to do is re­gen­er­ate tis­sues,” Bai­ley said.

The plan for an IPO re­mains in place. Yet Bai­ley ac­knowl­edged the com­pa­ny is wary of leap­ing on­to a mar­ket pre­ma­ture­ly, draw­ing a com­par­i­son with plant-based meat sub­sti­tute mak­er Be­yond Meat.

“Clear­ly, we need to have a re­cep­tive mar­ket and…we’ve seen that with Be­yond Meat…so I think that in­vestors are go­ing to come to terms for this in the near fu­ture,” he said. “We’re talk­ing to banks…I think that we’re well-poised, go­ing in­to the next year to do that.”

In the com­ing five to sev­en years, Ju­ve­nes­cence has bold plans. It ex­pects to have at least four an­ti-ag­ing prod­ucts on the mar­ket, Bai­ley said. “I’m hope­ful that we have gone through proof-of-con­cept with three phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal agents and are li­cens­ing with big phar­ma, be­cause we’re not hir­ing 10,000 sales reps. So we’ll let them do that.”

Sci­ence fic­tion is now sci­ence, he un­der­scored. “I think the world is go­ing to be shocked.”

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.

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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Sen­ate Fi­nance Com­mit­tee lobs more bi­par­ti­san pres­sure on­to PBMs

Congress is honing in on how it wants to overhaul the rules of the road for pharmacy benefit managers, with a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday serving as the latest example of the Hill’s readiness to make changes to how pharma middlemen operate.

While pledging to ensure patients and pharmacies “don’t get a raw deal,” Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) laid out the beginning of what looks like a major bipartisan effort — moves the PBM industry is likely to challenge vigorously.

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Nicklas Westerholm, Egetis Therapeutics CEO

Ac­qui­si­tion talks on­go­ing for Swedish rare dis­ease biotech Egetis, shares up al­most 40%

Shares of the Sweden-based rare disease biotech Egetis Therapeutics skyrocketed on Thursday afternoon as the company said it’s engaged in “ongoing discussion” with external parties regarding a “potential acquisition.”

Egetis confirmed rumors with a statement on Thursday while noting that there is no certainty that a takeover offer will be made.

Nonetheless, the possibility of an acquisition has shot up Egetis’ share price. By the afternoon on Thursday, its stock price was {$EGTX.ST} up over 38%. An Egetis spokesperson told Endpoints News in an email that it has no further comments.

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Lu­pus drug de­vel­op­ment mar­ket heat­ing up, while FDA links with ad­vo­ca­cy group to fur­ther ac­cel­er­ate re­search

The long-underserved systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) market is suddenly buzzing with treatment possibilities. Less than two years after AstraZeneca’s approval for Saphnelo — the first new SLE drug in a decade and joining just one other approved in GSK’s Benlysta – the pipeline of potential drugs numbers in the dozens.

Although most are very early stage — Spherix Global Insights estimates five in Phase II/III — the pharma R&D enthusiasm is catching on among doctors, patients and advocacy groups. On Wednesday, the Lupus Research Alliance and the FDA formed a novel private-public partnership called Lupus Accelerating Breakthroughs Consortium (Lupus ABC) to help advance lupus clinical trial success.

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Stéphane Bancel, Moderna CEO (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Mod­er­na so­lid­i­fies deal with Kenya to build mR­NA man­u­fac­tur­ing fa­cil­i­ty

The mRNA player Moderna is further cementing its presence on the African continent.

Moderna announced on Thursday that it has finalized an agreement with Kenya’s government to partner up and bring an mRNA manufacturing facility to the east African nation. The new facility aims to manufacture up to 500 million doses of vaccines annually. Moderna also said the new facility will have the ability to spike its production capabilities to respond to public health emergencies on the continent or globally.

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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Deborah Waterhouse, ViiV Healthcare CEO

MPP re­cruits three gener­ic man­u­fac­tur­ers to ex­pand use of Vi­iV's in­jectable PrEP drug

ViiV Healthcare has teamed up with the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool and three generic manufacturers to expand access to medicine that can prevent HIV.

ViiV and the Medicines Patent Pool jointly announced Thursday that the MPP signed sub-licensing agreements with Aurobindo, Cipla and Viatris to manufacture generics of a long-acting form of cabotegravir for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). As a result of the agreement, the manufacturers will be able to develop, manufacture and supply generic versions of cabotegravir LA in 90 countries — subject to regulatory approvals.

Four community leaders who are living with HIV celebrate life and accomplishments in Theratechnologies' new campaign

Re­al pa­tient ‘cham­pi­ons’ liv­ing with HIV star in Ther­at­e­ch­nolo­gies cam­paign

Over the past several years, people living with HIV have been more often telling Theratechnologies that they wanted more representation. Specifically, they wanted more African American people and more focus on living and thriving versus more typical medication regimen messaging.

So Theratechnologies came up with a new campaign called “I Am A Champion,” initially launched at the US Conference on HIV last year. The initial conference, print and digital media efforts highlight the triumphs of four long-term survivors from across the US.

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