→ Alex Zha­voronkov’s Hong Kong-based AI-shop In­sil­i­co Med­i­cine has been buzzing with the pub­li­ca­tion of da­ta in Na­ture, which showed its ma­chine learn­ing ap­proach helped iden­ti­fy po­ten­tial drugs as­so­ci­at­ed with a par­tic­u­lar tar­get in a swift 21 days. On Wednes­day, the com­pa­ny dis­closed that is has al­lied with Chi­na-based Jiang­su Chia Tai Feng­hai Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Co in a deal worth up to $200 mil­lion — in­clud­ing an up­front pay­ment, as well as po­ten­tial mile­stone and roy­al­ty pay­ments.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion will fo­cus on two pro­grams to tack­le triple-neg­a­tive breast can­cer, us­ing an AI-en­abled plat­form for drug dis­cov­ery. Zha­voronkov said he was un­able to pro­vide more de­tail on the deal, but that he ex­pects the part­ner­ship to last about two years. “But we hope to ex­pand it be­cause, if his­to­ry is any in­di­ca­tion of the fu­ture, Chi­na is pro­gress­ing in drug dis­cov­ery,” he told End­points News.

A pla­toon of bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies have linked up with the emerg­ing crop of AI spe­cial­ists itch­ing to cap­i­tal­ize on how large datasets can be har­nessed to dri­ve new ther­a­pies in­to the clin­ic. Zha­voronkov is well con­nect­ed — last year he raised funds at the be­hest of Shang­hai high-fly­er WuXi AppTec, Sin­ga­pore’s Temasek, Pe­ter Dia­man­dis and Ju­ve­nes­cence. Last month, In­sil­i­co raised $37 mil­lion in its lat­est fund­ing round.

→ Af­ter star­tling the world with the claim that the ge­net­ic mu­ta­tion Chi­nese sci­en­tist Jiankui He at­tempt­ed to ed­it in em­bryos — lead­ing to the birth of twin girls — is as­so­ci­at­ed with a high­er risk of pre­ma­ture death, two UC Berke­ley re­searchers are re­tract­ing the pa­per. In a brief note, Na­ture wrote that Xinzhu Wei and Ras­mus Nielsen “have been made aware of a geno­typ­ing call­ing bias in the un­der­ly­ing UK Biobank da­ta from which the main re­sults of the study were drawn.” Fol­low­ing that ini­tial warn­ing from David Re­ich, the au­thors ran fur­ther analy­ses with dif­fer­ent data­bas­es and con­firmed that the cen­tral find­ing of the study about CCR5-∆32 was “the re­sult of this tech­ni­cal ar­ti­fact.”

→ Vivory­on Ther­a­peu­tics is of­fer­ing near­ly 37 mil­lion shares in a pub­lic of­fer­ing — hop­ing to gen­er­ate €30 mil­lion — to fund the Phase IIb de­vel­op­ment of its lead drug, PQ912, for Alzheimer’s dis­ease. The tri­al will be test­ing the drug in 250 pa­tients, with re­sults ex­pect­ed in 2022. 

→ Bay­er is ink­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Japan’s largest na­tion­al re­search or­ga­ni­za­tion, RIKEN In­no­va­tion, to “joint­ly ex­plore po­ten­tial drug tar­gets, uti­lize ba­sic drug dis­cov­ery tech­nolo­gies as well as as­sess dis­ease mech­a­nisms.”

→ Bar­bara Davis Cen­ter for Di­a­betes-found­ed Im­munoMol­e­c­u­lar Ther­a­peu­tics has raised $10 mil­lion in Se­ries A fi­nanc­ing to ad­vance its HLA-tar­get­ed dis­cov­ery plat­form and to de­vel­op its lead drug can­di­date in type 1 di­a­betes. The round was co-led by the JDRF T1D Fund and Morn­ing­side Ven­tures, along with the Col­orado Uni­ver­si­ty Health­care In­no­va­tion Fund.

Fewer Approvals, but Neurology Rivals Oncology and Sees Major Innovations

This report, the fourth in our Trinity Drug Index series, outlines key themes and emerging trends in the industry as we progress towards a new world of targeted and innovative products. It provides a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of novel drugs approved by the FDA in 2016, scoring each on its commercial performance, therapeutic value, and R&D investment (Table 1: Drug ranking – Ratings on a 1-5 scale).

For start-up biotechnology companies and resource stretched pharmaceutical organisations, launching a novel product can be challenging. Lean teams can make setting a launch strategy and achieving your commercial goals seem like a colossal undertaking, but can these barriers be transformed into opportunities that work to your brand’s advantage?
We spoke to Managing Consultant Frances Hendry to find out how Blue Latitude Health partnered with a fledgling subsidiary of a pharmaceutical organisation to launch an innovative product in a
complex market.
What does the launch environment look like for this product?
FH: We started working on the product at Phase II and now we’re going into Phase III trials. There is a significant unmet need in this disease area, and everyone is excited about the launch. However, the organisation is still evolving and the team is quite small – naturally this causes a little turbulence.

Every few years, a public health crisis (think Ebola, Zika) spurred by a rogue pathogen triggers a small-biotech rally, as drugmakers emerge from the woodwork with ambitious plans to treat the mounting outbreak. In most cases, that enthusiasm never quite delivers.

Things are no different, as the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China takes hold. There have been close to 300 confirmed human infections in China, and at least four deaths. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, which include MERS and SARS. On Tuesday, the CDC reported the virus was detected in a US traveler returning from Wuhan.

Update: Nominations open through end of day, Monday, January 27

Two years ago, when we did our first Endpoints 20-under-40, we profiled a set of up-and-comers who promised to help reshape the industry as we know it. Now we’re back and once again looking for the top 20 biopharma professionals under the age of 40. We’ll be profiling folks who have accomplished a lot at a young age but seem on the verge of accomplishing so much more.

The venture tide might have subsided, the IPO window may be closing and certain listed biotechs may be having a tough time amid Neil Woodford’s well-publicized demised, but there’s still plenty to celebrate in the UK BioIndustry Association’s eyes.

Overall investment in UK biotech last year fell from the record-breaking £2.2 billion levels of 2018 to £1.3 billion — including £679 million in venture capital, a meager £64 million in IPOs plus £596 million when you add up all public financings, according to a new report from the BIA.

→ Blueprint Medicines filed an amendment to its application to get the gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) drug Ayvakit approved in fourth-line GIST, the company disclosed in the prospectus for a new $325 million public offering.  Blueprint got a big accelerated OK on the drug this month in a particular mutation, but because the FDA decided to split their review in two, they didn’t hear on fourth-line GIST. They were supposed to hear before February 14, but this amendment could push that date back by 3 months. Blueprint wrote that the amendment is designed to allow the company to comply with the FDA’s request for data from the Phase III VOYAGER before they give a judgment.