Pfiz­er launch­es a gene ther­a­py study for Duchenne MD; Am­gen, NEA back re­al-world drug da­ta soft­ware com­pa­ny

→ Pfiz­er has launched its close­ly-watched study of a new “mi­ni-dy­s­trophin” gene ther­a­py for Duchenne mus­cu­lar dy­s­tro­phy. Duke’s Ed­ward Smith dosed the first boy on March 22. And da­ta are ex­pect­ed in H1 of next year, af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tors get a chance to ob­serve pa­tients’ re­sponse for a full year. Al­to­geth­er the study plans to en­roll 12 boys aged 5 to 12 for the study of PF-06939926.

→ Af­ter test­ing out the con­cept of an in­cu­ba­tor in New York City, Alexan­dria Re­al Es­tate Eq­ui­ties is bring­ing Alexan­dria Launch­Labs to the buzzing hub of Cam­bridge to house biotech star­tups — and po­ten­tial­ly fund them, too. The biotech de­vel­op­er and big Boston land­lord had pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed a one-time $100,000 prize to one of its ten­ants in the NYC site, but it doesn’t com­pare to the lev­el of sup­port, com­plete with seed cap­i­tal and men­tor­ship, that it is of­fer­ing to “the most promis­ing life sci­ence star­tups” among the two dozen it will ac­com­mo­date. Alexan­dria Seed Cap­i­tal Plat­form cur­rent­ly man­ages over $500 mil­lion. “Our goal is to make sure the com­pa­nies don’t waste time try­ing to raise mon­ey,” Alexan­dria CEO Joel Mar­cus told the Boston Globe. “They need to spend time on sci­ence and fo­cus on prod­ucts.” To help them do that, Alexan­dria Launch­Labs al­so of­fers 20,000 square feet of co-work­ing space in ad­di­tion to labs and sci­en­tif­ic equip­ment.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER