→ Neu­rotrope be­came the lat­est ca­su­al­ty in the high-risk Alzheimer’s R&D field. The biotech re­port­ed that their Phase II study of Bryo­statin-1 failed to show any im­prove­ment over place­bo us­ing the Se­vere Im­pair­ment Bat­tery (SIB) to­tal score at week 13. In fact, the drug arm did a lit­tle worse than a sug­ar pill, with an av­er­age in­crease of 1.3 points for the drug and 2.1 points for place­bo. Their shares $NTRP cratered in the rout that fol­lowed, plung­ing 78%. It’s cur­rent­ly a pen­ny stock.

The Alzheimer’s R&D field hasn’t record­ed a suc­cess in chang­ing the tra­jec­to­ry of the dis­ease, with re­cent piv­otal fail­ures forc­ing all the play­ers to re­con­sid­er their strate­gies.

→ Platelet Bio­Gen­e­sis (PBG) — a com­pa­ny fo­cused on stem cell-de­rived, on-de­mand hu­man platelets and platelet-based ther­a­peu­tics — has raised more than $26 mil­lion in Se­ries A-1 fi­nanc­ing. In com­bi­na­tion to this round, as well as Se­ries A fi­nanc­ing and grants, the com­pa­ny’s to­tal fund­ing is brought to about $45 mil­lion. The fi­nanc­ing was co-led by Ziff Cap­i­tal Part­ners and Qim­ing Ven­ture Part­ners USA in ad­di­tion to ex­ist­ing in­ves­tures Nest.Bio Ven­tures and eCoast An­gels.

The com­pa­ny said that it “will use the funds from the Se­ries A-1 round to ac­cel­er­ate the de­vel­op­ment of its donor-in­de­pen­dent platelet man­u­fac­tur­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties and ad­vance its proof of con­cept work around platelet-based ther­a­peu­tics.” PBG plans to dou­ble its staff to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 50 em­ploy­ees in 2020.

→ Stu­art Levy, co-founder of Paratek Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, passed away last week.

“Stu­art was a dis­tin­guished physi­cian who was the fore­front of an­tibi­ot­ic de­vel­op­ment and a ded­i­cat­ed cham­pi­on for the pru­dent use of an­tibi­otics,” said Evan Loh, Paratek CEO. “More im­por­tant­ly, he was a dear friend and men­tor to so many and his pas­sion lives on in each of us as we work to con­tin­ue his mis­sion of com­bat­ing the dai­ly threat of life-threat­en­ing in­fec­tions. We will great­ly miss him.”

Levy co-found­ed Paratek more than 20 years ago along with Wal­ter Gilbert. He was in­stru­men­tal in the de­vel­op­ment of the com­pa­ny’s lead an­tibi­otics, Nuzyra and Seysara. Levy dis­cov­ered the ef­flux mech­a­nism for drug (tetra­cy­cline) re­sis­tance and was among the first sci­en­tists to doc­u­ment the trans­fer of re­sis­tant bac­te­ria from an­i­mals to farm­work­ers. His 1992 book, The An­tibi­ot­ic Para­dox: How Mir­a­cle Drugs Are De­stroy­ing the Mir­a­cle, has been cit­ed wide­ly and trans­lat­ed in­to four lan­guages.

The news comes a few weeks af­ter the com­pa­ny pub­lished pos­i­tive Phase III da­ta for Nuzyra for pa­tients with AB­SS­SI.

→ In the midst of a sur­prise in­ter partes re­view by the US Patent Tri­als Ap­peal Board (PT­AB) for Alex­ion’s Soliris, the com­pa­ny and Bridge­Bio’s sub­sidiary Ei­dos Ther­a­peu­tics have inked an agree­ment grant­i­ng Alex­ion an ex­clu­sive li­cense to de­vel­op and com­mer­cial­ize their oral­ly-ad­min­is­tered small mol­e­cule AG10 — de­signed to treat transthyretin amy­loi­do­sis (AT­TR) by bind­ing and sta­bi­liz­ing transthyretin (TTR) in the blood— in Japan.

“Ei­dos is cur­rent­ly eval­u­at­ing AG10 in a Phase III study in the US and Eu­rope for AT­TR car­diomy­opa­thy (AT­TR-CM) – a pro­gres­sive, fa­tal dis­ease caused by the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of mis­fold­ed TTR amy­loid in the heart – and plans to be­gin a Phase III study in AT­TR polyneu­ropa­thy (AT­TR-PN) – a pro­gres­sive, fa­tal dis­ease caused by the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of mis­fold­ed TTR amy­loid in the pe­riph­er­al ner­vous sys­tem.”

→ A few months af­ter Ac­celeron and its part­ner at Cel­gene se­cured pri­or­i­ty re­view for their red blood cell boost­ing drug, lus­pa­ter­cept — to man­age ane­mia re­sult­ing from myelodys­plas­tic syn­drome (MDS) as well as be­ta tha­lassemia — the com­pa­ny has an­nounced an­oth­er win. This time they’ve gained an or­phan drug des­ig­na­tion by the FDA for its in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al ther­a­py so­tater­cept for the treat­ment of pa­tients with pul­monary ar­te­r­i­al hy­per­ten­sion (PAH).

The FDA late Friday awarded Boehringer Ingelheim the first interchangeability designation for its Humira biosimilar Cyltezo, meaning that when it launches in July 2023, pharmacists will be able to automatically substitute the Boehringer’s version for AbbVie’s mega-blockbuster without a doctor’s input.

The designation will likely give Boehringer, which first won approval for Cyltezo in 2017, the leg up on a crowded field of Humira competitors.

There’s a new AI player jumping into the drug discovery game. And they have some high-powered scientific advisors in their corner.

Tel Aviv-based Quris has built what it calls a “patient-on-a-chip” AI platform that it’s touting as a way to circumvent unreliable animal testing with a more efficient way to judge safety and efficacy. Animal testing, particularly involving mice, has proven a notoriously unreliable way to do preclinical testing — though it is well-established with regulators.

Largely known for its nonpeptide small molecule research, Crinetics has been keeping its radiopharma work comparatively under wraps. But that changed Monday afternoon as the California biotech spun out a new company focused solely on the burgeoning field.

Crinetics launched Radionetics after the closing bell Monday, the company announced, seeding the new entity with $30 million raised from 5AM Ventures and Frazier Healthcare Partners. Radionetics will start with its own radiopharma-centric platform and a pipeline of 10 programs aimed at solid tumors.