Boston, MA-based start­up Gen­tiBio land­ed a $20 mil­lion seed fund from three in­vestors to dive in­to en­gi­neered reg­u­la­to­ry T cell (En­gTreg) de­vel­op­ment.

Mar­quee in­vestors Or­biMed, No­var­tis Ven­ture Fund and RA Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment have backed Gen­tiBio’s mis­sion to de­vel­op En­gTregs for the treat­ment of au­toim­mune, al­loim­mune, au­toin­flam­ma­to­ry, and al­ler­gic dis­eases. Un­like oth­er com­pa­nies study­ing treat­ments us­ing a pa­tient’s own Tregs, Gen­tiBio plans to make use of CD4+ im­mune cells, found in the blood.

Gen­tiBio’s co-founders hail from the  Seat­tle Chil­dren’s Re­search In­sti­tute, Be­naroya Re­search In­sti­tute at Vir­ginia Ma­son (BRI), and MI­GAL Galilee Re­search In­sti­tute (MI­GAL). All three com­pa­nies are now part­ners, and Seat­tle Chil­dren’s has agreed to li­cense its tech­nol­o­gy ex­clu­sive­ly to Gen­tiBio.

Many com­pa­nies have eyed Treg cell ther­a­pies in the last decade, but the rar­i­ty and plas­tic­i­ty of en­doge­nous Treg cells pose a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge.

David Rawl­ings

“Tregs are rare cells with­in the im­mune sys­tem and cur­rent ther­a­pies that source Tregs cells from the blood stream can be cost­ly and cum­ber­some. In con­trast, Seat­tle Chil­dren’s unique tech­nol­o­gy en­ables the gen­er­a­tion of en­gi­neered reg­u­la­to­ry T cells, or En­gTregs, from the more abun­dant CD4+ cell pop­u­la­tion, ad­dress­ing a crit­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing short­com­ing for this nov­el treat­ment,” David Rawl­ings, Gen­tiBio co-founder and se­nior sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­sor and di­rec­tor of the Cen­ter for Im­mu­ni­ty and Im­munother­a­pies at Seat­tle Chil­dren’s Re­search In­sti­tute, said in a state­ment.

Adel Na­da

Gen­tiBio co-founder and CEO Adel Na­da added in a state­ment: “Gen­tiBio is fo­cused on ad­dress­ing the tech­ni­cal bot­tle­necks that have throt­tled Treg ther­a­peu­tics, and we are thrilled to ex­clu­sive­ly in-li­cense a port­fo­lio of un­prece­dent­ed breadth from Seat­tle Chil­dren’s and Be­naroya Re­search In­sti­tute in the U.S. and MI­GAL Galilee Re­search In­sti­tute in Is­rael,””The tech­nolo­gies li­censed from these pre­mier re­search in­sti­tu­tions are ma­ture and well-dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed, and will be fur­ther op­ti­mized in spon­sored re­search col­lab­o­ra­tions with the sci­en­tif­ic teams that dis­cov­ered them to ad­vance nov­el and po­tent ther­a­peu­tics with the po­ten­tial to treat and cure se­ri­ous au­toim­mune and in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­eases.”

David Livingston, the Dana-Farber/Harvard Med scientist who helped shine a light on some of the key molecular drivers of breast and ovarian cancer, died unexpectedly last Sunday.

One of the senior leaders at Dana-Farber during his nearly half century of work there, Livingston was credited with shedding light on the genes that regulate cell growth, with insights into inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations that helped lay the scientific foundation for targeted therapies and earlier detection that have transformed the field.

Three Senate Democrats are backing an FDA plan to require mandatory prescriber education for opioids as overdose deaths have risen sharply over the past decade, with almost 97,000 American opioid-related overdose deaths in the past year alone.

While acknowledging a decline in overall opioid analgesic dispensing in recent years, the FDA said it’s reconsidering the need for mandatory prescriber training through a REMS given the current situation with overdoses, and is seeking input on the aspects of the opioid crisis that mandatory training could potentially mitigate.

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It took seven months from exiting “quiet mode” for Ventyx Biosciences to land its very own stock ticker, raising $165 million in venture funds along the way.

Now, after pricing a massive $151.5 million IPO, the Encinitas, CA-based biotech is gunning for Phase II.

Ventyx priced close to 9.5 million shares at $16 apiece on Wednesday, the midpoint of its $15 to $17 range. CEO Raju Mohan filed the S-1 papers at the end of September, just over a week after unveiling a $114 million Series B round. He penciled in the standard figure of $100 million at first, likely knowing that in the last year, it’s been common for biotechs to raise much more than those initial estimates.

Just as Avoro Capital’s campaign to derail Merck’s proposed $11.5 billion buyout of Acceleron gains steam, Bristol Myers Squibb is leaning in with some hefty counterweight.

The pharma giant is planning to tender its Acceleron shares, Bloomberg reported, which add up to a sizable 11.5% stake. Based on the offer price, the sale would net Bristol Myers around $1.3 billion.

To complete its deal, Merck needs a majority of shareholders to agree to sell their shares.