The idea of tar­get­ing senes­cent cells to treat age-re­lat­ed dis­eases is con­tin­u­ing to gath­er steam, and Khosla Ven­tures is help­ing get the lat­est play go­ing with a $12 mil­lion seed round.

Rube­do Life Sci­ences is fo­cus­ing its ini­tial ef­forts on res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases such as id­io­path­ic pul­monary fi­bro­sis and ob­struc­tive pul­monary dis­ease, with pre­clin­i­cal pro­grams in on­col­o­gy, neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tions, skele­tal mus­cle dis­or­ders and oth­ers to fol­low.

With the mon­ey, the goal is to move sev­er­al com­pounds in­to IND-en­abling stud­ies in pul­monary dis­eases start­ing next year.

“We were at­tract­ed to Rube­do by the speed of which the com­pa­ny is ad­vanc­ing mul­ti­ple lead com­pounds in­to IND-en­abling stud­ies across dif­fer­ent ar­eas of un­met med­ical need,” Zal Bil­imo­ria, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Refac­tor Cap­i­tal, said in a state­ment. The VC firm joined Longevi­ty Fund, Shan­da and oth­ers in the fi­nanc­ing.

Af­ter spend­ing some years at Stan­ford re­search­ing ag­ing and re­gen­er­a­tive med­i­cine, CEO Mar­co Quan­ta co-found­ed the com­pa­ny with 5AM Ven­ture Part­ners en­tre­pre­neur-in-res­i­dence Mark Gal­lop and Ju­lian Klein, who al­so did his grad­u­ate work at Stan­ford. The big idea at Rube­do has to do with a com­pu­ta­tion­al drug dis­cov­ery plat­form that comes up with small mol­e­cule can­di­dates to drug senes­cent cells.

Jun­shi leads Se­ries C+ in­fu­sion for Chi­nese syn­thet­ic lethal­i­ty play­er

Chi­nese biotech Im­pact Ther­a­peu­tics has grabbed $50 mil­lion to fu­el more work on a slate of drugs that tar­get syn­thet­ic lethal­i­ty, in­clud­ing PARP and oth­er DNA dam­age re­sponse path­ways.

Jun­shi Bio­sciences — known it­self for a slate of an­ti­bod­ies aimed at can­cer, au­toim­mune dis­eases and more re­cent­ly, Covid-19 — led the Se­ries C+. Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures and Chi­na Sum­mit Cap­i­tal re­turned for more, flanked by new in­vestors AJ As­set Mgmt, Zhen­ji Cap­i­tal, West Foun­tain Glob­al Fund and Ausun Phar­ma.

“2021 is ex­pect­ed to be a sig­nif­i­cant turn point for us, as we are start­ing a se­ries of clin­i­cal tri­als in the US,” CEO Jun Bao said in a state­ment. — Am­ber Tong

Nearly two months after spinning out from Merck, women’s health business Organon has struck its first half-billion-dollar deal.

Organon $OGN has promised $25 million upfront and another $475 million in biobucks for worldwide rights to ebopiprant, ObsEva’s investigational treatment for preterm labor. Ebopiprant, a selective prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α) receptor antagonist, was originally licensed from Merck KGaA in 2015. The candidate works by reducing inflammation and uterine contractions.

As public and private companies stare down the reality of the Delta variant, many are now requiring that their employees or students be vaccinated against Covid-19 prior to attending school or to returning or starting a new job. Claims that such mandates are illegal or cannot be used for vaccines under emergency use authorizations have now been dismissed.

Setting the record straight, the Department of Justice on Monday called the mandates legal in a new memo, even when used for people with vaccines that remain subject to EUAs.