A Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures-backed cell ther­a­py biotech has se­cured $50 mil­lion in Se­ries A funds to bankroll CAR-NK ther­a­pies.

At the helm of the Shang­hai-based Neukio Bio­ther­a­peu­tics is a leader with ex­pe­ri­ence in the CAR-T cell ther­a­py mar­ket, with Richard Liqun Wang hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly served as chief ex­ec­u­tive of the Fo­s­un and Kite joint ven­ture that land­ed the first CAR-T cell ther­a­py ap­proval in Chi­na last year. Kite and own­er Gilead mar­ket the cell ther­a­py prod­uct as Yescar­ta in the US.

Neukio raised the round with sup­port from Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures, Sher­pa Health­care Part­ners and IDG Cap­i­tal. The com­pa­ny pre­vi­ous­ly snagged $40 mil­lion in what it char­ac­ter­ized as an an­gel round in Oc­to­ber 2021. The same in­vestors took part in that fi­nanc­ing.

The biotech, formed last year, is look­ing to make al­lo­genic cell ther­a­pies “via the iP­SC-CAR-NK ax­is,” ac­cord­ing to its web­site. Neukio has 5,700 square me­ters of R&D and man­u­fac­tur­ing space, the biotech says on its web­site.

With the Se­ries A, Neukio said it will put can­di­dates through pre­clin­i­cal and clin­i­cal stud­ies, as well as use the pro­ceeds to hire more em­ploy­ees.

“In as lit­tle as 10 months since the op­er­a­tion of our new lab­o­ra­to­ries, not on­ly have we com­plet­ed sev­er­al sig­nal­ing path­way mod­i­fi­ca­tions and CAR de­signs tai­lored for sol­id tu­mors, but al­so we have made sig­nif­i­cant progress in the de­vel­op­ment of in­no­v­a­tive man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es of NK dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion and ex­pan­sion,” Wang, the founder, CEO and chair­man, said in a state­ment.

New in­vestors in­clude CD Cap­i­tal, Al­win Cap­i­tal and Sur­plus Cap­i­tal. — Kyle LaHu­cik

Flag­ship Bio­sciences ac­quire a di­vi­sion from In­ter­pace  

A Col­orado-based biotech is look­ing to snap up a di­vi­sion from In­ter­pace Bio­sciences.

Flag­ship Bio­sciences, which pro­vides bi­o­log­i­cal and bio­mark­er an­a­lyt­i­cal ser­vices, has ac­quired In­ter­pace Phar­ma So­lu­tions, a di­vi­sion of In­ter­pace Bio­sciences, for an undis­closed amount.

Ac­cord­ing to Flag­ship, the com­bined com­pa­ny will add to an ar­se­nal of an­a­lyt­i­cal and bio­mark­er ser­vices as well as pro­vide ac­cess to a re­search lab­o­ra­to­ry in North Car­oli­na’s Re­search Tri­an­gle.

“By com­bin­ing these or­ga­ni­za­tions, we cre­ate a sin­gle-source provider of­fer­ing a larg­er range of bio­mark­er and an­a­lyt­ics ser­vices while main­tain­ing and ex­pand­ing the proven ex­per­tise of each lab­o­ra­to­ry,” said Trevor John­son, Flag­ship’s CEO in a state­ment.

The deal, ac­cord­ing to Flag­ship, aims to use IPS’s ca­pa­bil­i­ties to sup­port clin­i­cal tri­als and di­ag­nos­tic de­vel­op­ment in sev­er­al ar­eas in­clud­ing im­muno-on­col­o­gy, hema­tol­ogy and sol­id tu­mors, among oth­ers.

This ac­qui­si­tion al­so comes on the back of Flag­ship re­ceiv­ing an in­vest­ment from Am­per­sand Cap­i­tal Part­ners, BroadOak Cap­i­tal Part­ners and Re­search Cor­po­ra­tion Tech­nolo­gies. The amount of the in­vest­ment was not dis­closed. — Tyler Patchen

Eli Lilly has succeeded in its attempt to get the first non-covalent version of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase, or BTK, inhibitors to market, pushing it past rival Merck.

The FDA gave an accelerated nod to Lilly’s daily oral med, to be sold as Jaypirca, for patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma.

The agency’s green light, disclosed by the Indianapolis Big Pharma on Friday afternoon, catapults Lilly into a field dominated by covalent BTK inhibitors, which includes AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson’s Imbruvica, AstraZeneca’s Calquence and BeiGene’s Brukinsa.

The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted unanimously in favor of “harmonizing” Covid vaccine compositions, meaning all current vaccine recipients would receive a bivalent vaccine, regardless of whether they’ve gotten their primary series.

The vote marks an effort to clear up confusion around varying formulations and dosing schedules for current primary series and booster vaccines, as well as “get closer to the strains that are circulating,” according to committee member Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The CDMO arm of one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates has posted its year-end results and plans for 2023, which include new construction.

Samsung Biologics netted north of KRW 3 trillion ($2.4 billion) in 2022 revenue and an operating profit of KRW 983.6 billion ($799 million), which the company touted on Friday as “record-high earnings.” The revenue boost was 55% compared to 2021.

Novartis’ sickle cell drug, approved in 2019 and branded as Adakveo, has failed an ongoing Phase III, according to preliminary results.

The Swiss pharma giant unveiled early data from the ongoing STAND Phase III study on Friday, saying that crizanlizumab showed no statistically significant difference between the drug at two different dose levels compared to placebo in annualized rates of vaso-occlusive crises that lead to a healthcare visit over the first year since being randomized into the trial.