Raze Ther­a­peu­tics, the Cam­bridge start­up that launched in 2014 with $24 mil­lion in sup­port, is call­ing it quits.

The com­pa­ny was look­ing to ad­vance a new class of can­cer ther­a­peu­tics that tar­get key meta­bol­ic path­ways, but it ap­pears the sci­ence wasn’t quite ready for prime time.

Bruce Booth

Seed­ed in part by At­las Ven­ture, the com­pa­ny was fo­cused on can­cer an­a­bol­ic me­tab­o­lism, specif­i­cal­ly mi­to­chon­dr­i­al one-car­bon en­er­get­ics. The space has emerged re­cent­ly as a ma­jor dri­ver of can­cer pro­lif­er­a­tion, sur­vival, and bio­mass ac­cu­mu­la­tion. But ap­par­ent­ly the tech was too tough to con­tin­ue.

“Al­though it made in­trigu­ing progress, the un­der­ly­ing can­cer me­tab­o­lism bi­ol­o­gy was too com­pli­cat­ed to war­rant fur­ther in­vest­ment,” wrote Bruce Booth, part­ner at At­las, in a re­cent port­fo­lio up­date.

Such is life in biotech. Yet a new start­up has emerged in its place: Kyn Ther­a­peu­tics. Backed in part by At­las (and ex­plor­ing a sim­i­lar space), Kyn an­nounced a $49 mil­lion Se­ries A round this morn­ing. The com­pa­ny is led by a Raze’s for­mer CSO Mark Man­fre­di, an At­las en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence.

When asked what hap­pened at Raze, Man­fre­di said the com­pa­ny still had as­sets and col­lab­o­ra­tions, but no longer em­ployed any­one.

Pe­ter Bar­rett

The com­pa­ny was co-found­ed and led by At­las’ Pe­ter Bar­rett, and its sci­en­tif­ic founders in­clud­ed Vam­si Mootha (The Howard Hugh­es Med­ical In­sti­tute, Mass­a­chu­setts Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal), Josh Ra­bi­nowitz (Prince­ton), and David Saba­ti­ni (White­head/MIT).

Ac­cord­ing to Booth, Raze’s sci­en­tif­ic as­sets went back in­to acad­e­mia for fur­ther ex­plo­ration.

MIT scientists have developed a tool that they say can insert large gene sequences where they want in the genome.

In a paper published Thursday in Nature Biotechnology, MIT fellows Omar Abudayyeh, Jonathan Gootenberg and colleagues detail a technology they call PASTE, which they say can potentially be used to insert long strands of DNA and treat genetic diseases caused by many different mutations, such as cystic fibrosis and Leber congenital amaurosis, a rare eye disorder that causes blindness.

Almost all of the drug industry’s biggest advertisers cut their spending on Twitter to zero or near-zero over the last two weeks amid worries about impersonation of their brands by pranksters and the future of the social media company.

Among 18 of the biggest pharmaceutical advertisers in the US market, 12 cut their Twitter ad spending to nothing for the week beginning Nov. 14, according to Pathmatics, which tracks data on prescription drug ad spending as well as general corporate advertising. The list of drugmakers cutting spending to zero includes Merck, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer and others.

A day before Thanksgiving, J&J’s Janssen has a new cut of Phase III Spravato data to be grateful for.

The pharma giant announced on Wednesday that its nasal spray, also known as esketamine, beat extended-release quetiapine, previously sold by AstraZeneca as Seroquel XR, in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Of 676 adults, a significantly higher number of patients on Spravato were able to achieve remission and avoid relapse after 32 weeks, according to J&J.

The FDA typically releases guidance to help generic drug manufacturers develop new copycats of small molecule drugs, oftentimes in preparation for a brand name product’s patents or exclusivity to expire.

This week, FDA released such bioequivalence guidance for any generic drugmakers looking to take on Sarepta’s Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) drug Exondys 51 (eteplirsen), even though the drug’s sponsor has yet to convert the accelerated approval to a full approval, showing clinical benefit.