De­spite a sig­nif­i­cant bear mar­ket af­fect­ing the pub­lic biotech sec­tor, pri­vate com­pa­nies are still man­ag­ing to pull in VC-backed fund­ing rounds. The lat­est such round comes out of North Car­oli­na’s re­search tri­an­gle for a pre­ci­sion an­tibac­te­r­i­al drug mak­er.

Lo­cus Bio­sciences closed a $35 mil­lion Se­ries B round Wednes­day morn­ing, fea­tur­ing some no­table names in­clud­ing Ar­tis Ven­tures, Ten­cent Hold­ings, Viking Glob­al In­vestors, Dis­cov­ery In­no­va­tions and John­son and John­son In­no­va­tion, the in­vest­ment arm of J&J. CEO and co-founder Paul Garo­fo­lo told End­points News that the funds will be used to ad­vance the com­pa­ny’s lead can­di­date, dubbed LBP-EC01.

The pro­gram is a cr­Phage pre­ci­sion med­i­cine tar­get­ing E.coli bac­te­ria caus­ing uri­nary tract in­fec­tions. The can­di­date, for which BAR­DA of­fered a $76.9 mil­lion fund­ing award in 2020, is near­ing a Phase II/III tri­al that the com­pa­ny hopes will start in the mid­dle of 2022.

Garo­fo­lo says that while many ear­ly en­trants in the mi­cro­bio­me space were main­ly fo­cused on donor-de­rived so­lu­tions, Lo­cus’ phi­los­o­phy has al­ways been to at­tack spe­cif­ic tar­gets with pre­ci­sion med­i­cine. Ac­cord­ing to him, the biotech’s drugs are de­signed to lim­it off-site tox­i­c­i­ty: an ap­proach sim­i­lar to the vast ar­ray of on­col­o­gy biotechs out there, though for Lo­cus that means not af­fect­ing “good” bac­te­ria.

The CEO is al­so look­ing to­ward ac­qui­si­tions, a move they’re fa­mil­iar with as, af­ter its Se­ries A in 2017, the com­pa­ny ac­quired Epibio­me’s plat­form. The deal man­aged to put Lo­cus on J&J’s radar, Garo­fo­lo said, and it is a move they are con­sid­er­ing again, es­pe­cial­ly as the mar­ket go­ing through a tur­bu­lent pe­ri­od.

“We think there (are) great pre­ci­sion ad­di­tion tech­nolo­gies that are out there that are re­al­ly strug­gling, the mi­cro­bio­me space is not in great shape. I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly think that’s be­cause the com­pa­nies are not great com­pa­nies,” he said. “I think there are some great com­pa­nies out there that are re­al­ly in ba­si­cal­ly trou­bled wa­ters.”

The com­pa­ny’s pre­vi­ous Se­ries A round in 2017, of which Ar­tis and Ten­cent were a part, net­ted the com­pa­ny $17 mil­lion. But since then, the com­pa­ny has been land­ing sev­er­al non-di­lu­tive deals to keep the com­pa­ny’s en­gine run­ning. This in­cludes a deal in 2019 with J&J to de­vel­op CRISPR-en­gi­neered bac­te­rio­phage ther­a­peu­tics tar­get­ing two key pathogens for the po­ten­tial treat­ment of res­pi­ra­to­ry tract in­fec­tions, among oth­ers.

Through that deal, Lo­cus earned a cool $20 mil­lion in ini­tial pay­ments, and the biotech is el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive a to­tal of $798 mil­lion in po­ten­tial mile­stone pay­ments and roy­al­ties.

Over­all, Garo­fo­lo is tight­en­ing up Lo­cus’s war chest for the months ahead. He said he feels pre­pared for what the tri­als and the mar­ket might have up their sleeves.

Less than a week after HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra declared monkeypox a national health emergency, reports have emerged that the US plans to extend its vaccine supply by opting for a different route of administration.

Officials are expected to call for intradermal injection of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine — the only shot approved specifically for monkeypox in the US — as opposed to subcutaneous injection, unnamed sources told both the New York Times and Washington Post on Tuesday.

The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on Tuesday released a warning letter sent last week to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in Seattle for selling mole removal products over-the-counter, or, as the FDA explains, “introducing, delivering, or causing the introduction or delivery into interstate commerce of products that are unapproved new drugs.”

“There are no over-the-counter (OTC) drugs that can be legally sold for mole or skin tag removal, and FDA has safety concerns about drugs marketed OTC directly to consumers for these uses,” the agency said in its Aug. 4 warning.

Riding high on positive schizophrenia data it believes has the potential to reshape the entire field, Karuna Therapeutics put out word late Monday that it’s shooting for some new cash. And execs are swinging for the fences.

The biotech announced plans Monday afternoon to raise $600 million in a public offering, with a possibility of the total rising to $690 million if all options are exercised. The move aims to capitalize on Phase III data revealed Monday morning showing Karuna’s schizophrenia program significantly reduced symptoms compared to placebo.