A biotech in Chi­na re­ports to­day that it will be scoop­ing up a string of pre­clin­i­cal siR­NA pro­grams from Sanofi as the multi­na­tion­al play­er lat­er­als a dor­mant de­vel­op­ment plat­form to the Lil­ly-backed group in Shang­hai.

De­tails are sparse, but Rona Ther­a­peu­tics — which scored a $33 mil­lion launch round in April from Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures, CMB In­ter­na­tion­al, Pla­tanus, Fontus Cap­i­tal and Lant­i­ng Cap­i­tal — says it gained world­wide ex­clu­sive rights to Sanofi’s siR­NA plat­form.

The deal in­cludes new drugs for neu­ro and mus­cu­lar dis­eases, and Sanofi is hang­ing on to op­tions in those ar­eas for ex-Chi­na rights to any­thing that makes its way to an ap­proval.

There was an up­front in the deal, but no one is say­ing for how much.

Sanofi has had a star-crossed jour­ney in the RNA field, ini­tial­ly scor­ing a ma­jor al­liance with Al­ny­lam, then ex­it­ing with fi­tusir­an in the pipeline for he­mo­phil­ia. Safe­ty is­sues forced a re­vamp of that late-stage pro­gram, and just days ago the phar­ma­cy gi­ant flagged a fail­ure for its mi­croR­NA drug lademirsen, part­nered with Reg­u­lus.

But this deal has noth­ing di­rect­ly to do with those pro­grams. A spokesper­son for Sanofi tells me that the com­pa­ny is spin­ning out an in­ter­nal­ly de­vel­oped siR­NA plat­form, which they put on the shelf back in 2019. Sanofi is al­so keep­ing the deal terms here qui­et.

“Rona plans to quick­ly ad­vance the de­vel­op­ment of these pro­grams in meta­bol­ic, neu­ro­log­i­cal and oc­u­lar dis­eases to un­lock the po­ten­tial of siR­NA ther­a­peu­tics,” said Stel­la Shi, the CEO of Rona Ther­a­peu­tics.

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.