Painting by the numbers, Sana founders carve up a giant unicorn-sized IPO — for a biotech that hasn’t quite made it to the clinic

Steve Harr (L) and Hans Bishop

January 13, 2021 04:14 PM ESTUpdated January 14, 07:12 AM

Financing

Painting by the numbers, Sana founders carve up a giant unicorn-sized IPO — for a biotech that hasn't quite made it to the clinic

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Sana Biotechnology is one of those startups that was sketched in on the chalkboard day one in the shape of a unicorn.

A giant unicorn.

And from the numbers the cell therapy 2.0 play spelled out in their S-1 $SANA, it’s clear that the company founders — led by a pair of major VCs aligned with some high-profile industry figures — are hunting a big chunk of that value for themselves.

The raise they penciled in — $150 million — isn’t likely what they actually have in mind, and it doesn’t do justice to the size of their ambitions.

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.

Data Literacy: The Foundation for Modern Trial Execution

Kristin Mauri

In 2016, the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) updated their “Guidelines for Good Clinical Practice.” One key shift was a mandate to implement a risk-based quality management system throughout all stages of a clinical trial, and to take a systematic, prioritized, risk-based approach to clinical trial monitoring—on-site monitoring, remote monitoring, or any combination thereof.

January 27, 2021 10:11 AM EST

R&D

Pfizer's big blockbuster Xeljanz flunks its post-marketing safety study, renewing harsh questions for JAK class

Jason Mast

Editor

When the FDA approved Pfizer’s JAK inhibitor Xeljanz for rheumatoid arthritis in 2012, they slapped on a black box warning for a laundry list of adverse events and required the New York drugmaker to run a long-term safety study.

That study has since become a consistent headache for Pfizer and their blockbuster molecule. Last year, Pfizer dropped the entire high dose cohort after an independent monitoring board found more patients died in that group than in the low dose arm or a control arm of patients who received one of two TNF inhibitors, Enbrel or Humira.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 98,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

January 27, 2021 07:02 AM ESTUpdated 11:05 AM

Coronavirus

Covid-19 roundup: EU and AstraZeneca trade blows over slowdowns; Unusual unions pop up to test antibodies, vaccines

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Max Gelman

Associate Editor

Nicole DeFeudis

Associate Editor

After coming under fire for manufacturing delays last week, AstraZeneca’s feud with the European Union has spilled into the open.

The bloc accused the pharma giant on Wednesday of pulling out of a meeting to discuss cuts to its vaccine supplies, the AP reported. AstraZeneca denied the reports, saying it still planned on attending the discussion.

Early Wednesday, an EU Commission spokeswoman said that “the representative of AstraZeneca had announced this morning, had informed us this morning that their participation is not confirmed, is not happening.” But an AstraZeneca spokesperson later called the reports “not accurate.”

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 98,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Pascal Soriot, AP

January 27, 2021 09:21 AM EST

Bioregnum

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot severs an unusual board connection, steering clear of conflicts while retaining important alliances

CSL Behring chief Paul Perreault scored an unusual coup last summer when he added AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot to the board, via Zoom. It’s rare, to say the least, to see a Big Pharma CEO take any board post in an industry where interests can simultaneously connect and collide on multiple levels of operations.

The tie set the stage for an important manufacturing connection. The Australian pharma giant agreed to supply the country with 10s of millions of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine, once it passes regulatory muster.

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.

Adeno-associated virus-1 illustration; the use of AAVs resurrected the gene therapy field, but companies are now testing the limits of a 20-year-old technology (File photo, Shutterstock)

January 25, 2021 04:54 PM ESTUpdated January 26, 07:11 PM

In Focus

After 3 deaths rock the field, gene therapy researchers contemplate AAV's future

Jason Mast

Editor

Nicole Paulk was scrolling through her phone in bed early one morning in June when an email from a colleague jolted her awake. It was an article: Two patients in an Audentes gene therapy trial had died, grinding the study to a halt.

Paulk, who runs a gene therapy lab at the University of California, San Francisco, had planned to spend the day listening to talks at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, which was taking place that week. Instead, she skipped the conference, canceled every work call on her calendar and began phoning colleagues across academia and industry, trying to figure out what happened and why. All the while, a single name hung in the back of her head.

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.

Yanay Ofran (L) and Anat Binur (Ukko)

January 27, 2021 09:08 AM EST

Financing

Startups

Leaps by Bayer backs a protein engineering startup taking on Aimmune — and Nestlé — in peanut allergy

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Little capsules of peanut powder drove Nestlé’s $2.6 billion buyout of Aimmune. Now, with $40 million in new funding, a fledgling biotech is promising to bring a more sophisticated version of that protein therapy that can go much, much further.

Ukko’s goal is two-pronged — with the initial products spanning therapeutic and food — but it’s grounded in the same protein engineering platform, co-founder and CEO Anat Binur told Endpoints News.

January 27, 2021 06:22 AM ESTUpdated 07:47 AM

Financing

Startups

As targeted therapies get ever more precise, Deerfield unveils $50M bet on an Harvard professor's chemistry insights

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Behind the seemingly simple concept of targeted cancer therapies is the drug developer’s headache that the target is always changing. Each generation of kinase inhibitors may be ostensibly hitting the same oncogene, but in addition to blocking the wildtype oncogene, they must now also address the mutations that have developed along the way, spurring resistance to current drugs.

The more those target kinases evolve, too, the more they could resemble off-target kinases you don’t want to bind. So each iteration requires more selectivity — sometimes down to differences of a few atoms.

Vincent Sandanayaka (file photo)

January 27, 2021 04:56 AM ESTUpdated 11:19 AM

Financing

UPDATED: Ex-MD Anderson chief DePinho is helping launch another biotech — and he's sticking with familiar ground

Nicole DeFeudis

Associate Editor

Years after co-founding SINE-focused Karyopharm and stirring up controversy at MD Anderson, Ronald DePinho is helping uncloak a new biotech targeting solute carrier transporter proteins — and Karyopharm’s former head of chemistry is leading the charge.

Nirogy Therapeutics emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday with a $16.5 million Series A round and plans to hit the clinic by 2022. The financing should be enough to carry the startup’s lead program, a small molecule lactate transport inhibitor, through Phase I, CEO Vincent Sandanayaka said.

January 25, 2021 06:45 AM ESTUpdated 07:07 AM

Coronavirus

Merck scraps Covid-19 vaccine programs after they fail to measure up on efficacy in another major setback in the global fight

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

After turning up late to the vaccine development game in the global fight against Covid-19, Merck is now making a quick exit.

The pharma giant is reporting this morning that it’s decided to drop development of 2 vaccines — V590 and V591 — after taking a look at Phase I data that simply don’t measure up to either the natural immune response seen in people exposed to the virus or the vaccines already on or near the market.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 98,900+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.