Lenz Therapeutics thinks it can deliver a better eye drop than AbbVie’s Vuity and Orasis Pharmaceuticals’ CSF-1, under FDA review. And the San Diego biotech has $83.5 million to test those ambitions in three Phase III trials.

The late-stage studies are underway and will read out data on about 800 patients toward the end of this year and early 2024, president and CEO Eef Schimmelpennink told Endpoints News on Tuesday morning. The financing will bankroll the company for at least two and a half years, he added.

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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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Editor’s note: This is a live story and will be updated.

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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A month after revealing plans to concentrate on its late-stage immuno-neurology pipeline, Alector is trimming its headcount by 11%.

The layoffs will impact around 30 employees across the organization, the company disclosed in an SEC filing, adding that the plan will “better align the company’s resources” with the new strategy. With $712.9 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments as of the end of 2022, Alector believes the reserves will now get it through 2025.

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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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Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday morning it is ending development of its adult RSV vaccine that was in the middle of a 27,200-patient trial, giving up a big slice of what’s expected to be the next multibillion-dollar pharma market.

The decision came down to the shifting RSV “competitive landscape,” a company spokesperson tells Endpoints News, adding the “breadth of options” was much different than when J&J first started its pivotal study. The spokesperson declined to comment on the Phase III data, saying only the shot is undergoing an “ongoing assessment.”

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