Rick Klaus­ner Lyell

→ Lyell chief Rick Klaus­ner con­tin­ues to build up his net­work of com­pa­nies beaver­ing away at new cell ther­a­pies. The Glax­o­SmithK­line part­ner led a $45 mil­lion E round for Eu­re­ka Ther­a­peu­tics, which is work­ing with en­gi­neered T cells on sol­id tu­mors. Klaus­ner, a for­mer di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Can­cer In­sti­tute, al­so found­ed Juno and Grail. The fund­ing comes with a strate­gic re­search col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Eu­re­ka and Lyell.

→ Shares of Blue­print Med­i­cines $BPMC bounced high­er Tues­day morn­ing af­ter the Cam­bridge, MA-based biotech re­port­ed that their mid-stage study for avapri­tinib in pa­tients with in­do­lent sys­temic mas­to­cy­to­sis of­fered pos­i­tive da­ta. Blue­print says that at 16 weeks they record­ed a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline of 30% in pa­tients’ to­tal symp­tom score. An­drew Berens at SVB Leerink not­ed: “While we be­lieve Ay­vak­it in iSM pro­vides an­oth­er val­ue dri­ver for BPMC shares, we ac­knowl­edge the fun­da­men­tal val­u­a­tion dis­con­nec­tion from cur­rent BPMC shares amid mar­ket tur­moil.”

→ Wel­comed to the Hong Kong Stock Ex­change with open arms, In­no­Care has bagged $288 mil­lion in its IPO, Reuters re­port­ed. The biotech — which has of­fices across Bei­jing, Shang­hai, Nan­jing, Guangzhou, Prince­ton and Boston — has priced its float at the top of the range (HK$8.95), mark­ing the first ma­jor IPO to pro­ceed in Hong Kong since the stock mar­ket re­opened af­ter the Lu­nar New Year hol­i­day amid coro­n­avirus fears. Most of the new cash will go to­ward its lead drug, a BTK in­hibitor dubbed ore­labru­ti­nib; the rest will fund de­vel­op­ment of oth­er can­cer and au­toim­mune drugs.

Over the past few years, the promise of blocking CD47 — a “don’t eat me” signal co-opted by cancer cells — has sent drugmakers big and small into a frenzy. But one biotech is now bowing out.

Zai Lab is deprioritizing ZL-1201, its CD47 inhibitor, scrapping plans for a Phase II trial. It will now “pursue out-licensing opportunities,” the company said in its Q2 update. The decision was based on a review of the competitive landscape, it added, without going into further details.

Less than a week after HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra declared monkeypox a national health emergency, reports have emerged that the US plans to extend its vaccine supply by opting for a different route of administration.

Officials are expected to call for intradermal injection of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine — the only shot approved specifically for monkeypox in the US — as opposed to subcutaneous injection, unnamed sources told both the New York Times and Washington Post on Tuesday.

In April, the FDA hit BioCryst with a partial hold, leading the biotech to pause enrollment on three of its rare disease clinical trials and sending its shares down 30%.

Last week, BioCryst said the partial clinical hold had been resolved and that it would resume enrolling its clinical trials for its drug, dubbed BCX9930, but with new protocols at a lower 400 mg dose.

BioCryst’s drug is a factor D inhibitor, which was being tested in an array of immune diseases. The biotech is running two pivotal trials for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, as well as a third trial looking at a set of three diseases — C3 glomerulopathy, IgA nephropathy and primary membranous nephropathy.

The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research on Tuesday released a warning letter sent last week to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in Seattle for selling mole removal products over-the-counter, or, as the FDA explains, “introducing, delivering, or causing the introduction or delivery into interstate commerce of products that are unapproved new drugs.”

“There are no over-the-counter (OTC) drugs that can be legally sold for mole or skin tag removal, and FDA has safety concerns about drugs marketed OTC directly to consumers for these uses,” the agency said in its Aug. 4 warning.