→ Pen­ny stock North­west Bio­ther­a­peu­tics is still hang­ing on. The com­pa­ny, which is de­vel­op­ing DC­Vax for sol­id tu­mor can­cers, has an­nounced that they’ve reached a set­tle­ment with the SEC. The com­pa­ny has agreed to pay a fine of $250,000 “in con­nec­tion with past weak­ness­es in its in­ter­nal con­trols” and the com­pa­ny will nei­ther ad­mit nor de­ny any vi­o­la­tions un­der the set­tle­ment.

→ Long-slid­ing biotech Five Prime Ther­a­peu­tics will lay­off 70 em­ploy­ees as part of a cor­po­rate re­struc­tur­ing as it strug­gles to find its foot­ing. The on­col­o­gy-fo­cused com­pa­ny has been in free-fall since late 2017, when its Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb-part­nered drug cabi­ral­izum­ab showed weak ef­fi­ca­cy and a trou­bling safe­ty pro­file in ear­ly-stage pan­cre­at­ic can­cer. In Jan­u­ary, they cut 41 jobs, about a fifth of its work­force at the time, and in Sep­tem­ber they tapped William Ringo as in­ter­im CEO af­ter Aron Knicker­bock­er re­signed. On Thurs­day, Ringo an­nounced the lay­offs. “The com­pa­ny will re­tain a small re­search group fo­cused on ad­vanc­ing three whol­ly-owned, late-stage re­search as­sets and will in­creas­ing­ly re­ly on out­sourc­ing and con­tract­ed ca­pa­bil­i­ties,” the com­pa­ny wrote.

→ Is­raeli biotech Ther­a­pix Bio­sciences — a com­pa­ny that is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the use of cannabi­noid-based drugs in the re­duc­tion of symp­toms in adults suf­fer­ing from Tourette’s syn­drome — has re­vealed up­dates on its planned merg­er with Des­tiny Bio­sciences. Ac­cord­ing to the let­ter of in­tent, “the par­ties agreed to al­low un­til Oc­to­ber 31, 2019, to com­plete the de­fin­i­tive agree­ment be­fore aban­don­ing the trans­ac­tion.” Ther­a­pix’s board of di­rec­tors said that it is will­ing to give Des­tiny ad­di­tion­al time to reach a de­ci­sion. Des­tiny is cur­rent­ly car­ry­ing out a val­u­a­tion analy­sis of the merg­er.

The researcher behind base-editing is out with what some scientists are hailing as the biggest advancement in CRISPR technology since that 2016 breakthrough: “prime editing.” The new molecular gadget is capable of erasing any base pair and stenciling in another and cutting or adding long segments of DNA without breaking both strands of the helix.

David Liu, base editing pioneer and founder of Beam Therapeutics, published the findings in Nature alongside Andrew Anzalone. They estimated that the breakthrough “in principle” puts 89% of human diseases in purview — although experts cautioned that human therapies were a long way off.

For the past three years Frazier Healthcare Partners’ Bhaskar Chaudhuri has been carefully and quietly grooming Arcutis Therapeutics, a new dermatology play he co-founded to deliver topical formulations of well-known drugs. Now that the biotech is poised to enter Phase III, he’s being joined by a marquee syndicate for its $94.5 million Series C.

HBM Healthcare Investments, Vivo Capital, BlackRock, Omega Funds, Pivotal BioVentures, and Goldman Sachs jumped on board, joining Bain Capital Life Sciences, OrbiMed and RA Capital Management in backing Arcutis’ lead topical cream for plaque psoriasis.

The remedy for the most common side effect for one of the most common multiple sclerosis drugs is simple: aspirin.

Taking aspirin with Biogen’s Tecfidera will reduce the flush, a sometimes painful form of red skin irritation, many patients experiences. The problem is that the aspirin has to be taken at least 30 minutes before Tecfidera, turning a simple twice-a-day, one-dose oral drug into a staggered two-drug regimen.

Despite a head start, when Bristol-Myers Squibb and its pioneering checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo suffered a key lung cancer setback in 2016, they found themselves relegated to the backseat as Merck’s Keytruda seized the wheel on the road to immunotherapy stardom. Bristol-Myers has since suffered blow after blow in its quest to take a big slice of the lucrative market, peppered with some small successes. On Tuesday, the New Jersey drugmaker touted positive data from a Phase III open-label study in a bid to carve itself a piece of the frontline lung cancer market.