Less than a month af­ter of­fer­ing a glimpse at ear­ly clin­i­cal da­ta for its lead can­cer im­munother­a­py at vir­tu­al ES­MO, Sen­sei Bio­ther­a­peu­tics has reeled in $28.5 mil­lion to wade deep­er in­to Phase II.

The Mary­land-based biotech, for­mer­ly known as Panacea, is look­ing to ex­pand Phase II tri­als for SNS-301, an en­gi­neered in­ac­ti­vat­ed bac­te­rio­phage de­signed to “awak­en” the im­mune sys­tem. “Right now we’re re­al­ly fo­cused on adding ad­di­tion­al Phase II clin­i­cal and trans­la­tion­al da­ta to sup­port SNS-301,” CEO John Celebi said.

The round, which the com­pa­ny is call­ing a Se­ries AA, fol­lows sev­er­al seed rounds, Celebi said. It was led by Cam­bri­an Bio­phar­ma and H&S Ven­tures, and will fund the Phase II de­vel­op­ment of SNS-301. It will al­so help ready the biotech’s ear­li­er can­di­dates for IND ap­pli­ca­tions, which could come some­time in the next 12 to 18 months. That in­cludes SNS-401, a po­ten­tial vac­cine cock­tail against Merkel cell car­ci­no­ma, and SNS-VISTA, an an­ti­body-based ther­a­peu­tic.

Last sum­mer, Sen­sei joined forces with As­traZeneca to test SNS-301 in com­bi­na­tion with Imfinzi in two Phase II tri­als across mul­ti­ple sol­id tu­mors. And at ES­MO, the biotech read out ear­ly da­ta from a Phase I/II study of the can­di­date and Mer­ck’s Keytru­da for ad­vanced head and neck can­cer. One of 9 pa­tients eval­u­at­ed at the time had a par­tial re­sponse, with a tu­mor re­duc­tion of 43%, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny.

“The ap­proval of pem­brolizum­ab is an ex­cit­ing event for pa­tients, but clear­ly there’s a lot of room for im­prove­ment,” Celebi said, cit­ing a Keynote-012 study which showed Mer­ck’s drug achieved an 18% over­all re­sponse in pa­tients with metasta­t­ic squa­mous cell car­ci­no­ma of the head and neck.

CMO Marie-Louise Fjaell­skog not­ed in a state­ment:

To date, we have ob­served promis­ing clin­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty that is cor­re­lat­ed with im­mune re­sponse for SNS-301, in­clud­ing a par­tial re­sponse in a pa­tient with PD-L1-neg­a­tive dis­ease. This ini­tial da­ta from 9 pa­tients pro­vides us with the ra­tio­nale to con­tin­ue ex­plor­ing its safe­ty and ef­fi­ca­cy in 1^st and 2^nd line SC­CHN pa­tients.

Fu­ture Ven­tures, Chris­t­ian Anger­may­er’s Ape­iron In­vest­ment Group, and Pre­sight Ven­tures al­so chipped in to the round.

“With ex­pe­ri­enced man­age­ment and sci­en­tif­ic teams, Sen­sei is well po­si­tioned to be­come a leader in next gen­er­a­tion of im­mune-on­col­o­gy ther­a­peu­tics,” Cam­bri­an Bio­phar­ma CEO James Pey­er said in a state­ment.

Several countries had restarted their portions of AstraZeneca’s global Phase III Covid-19 vaccine trial after the study was paused worldwide in early September, but the US notably stayed on the sidelines — until now. Friday afternoon the pharma giant announced the all clear from US regulators. And on top of that, J&J announced Friday evening that it’s preparing to resume its own Phase III vaccine trial.

After flying high on Wall Street for the last few months of a pandemic, BiondVax’s stock and dreams of getting approval for its universal flu vaccine hit the windshield.

The Jerusalem-based biotech announced on Friday that its only clinical candidate, M-001, failed both primary and secondary endpoints in a Phase III study. There was no statistically significant difference in reduction of flu illness and severity between the vaccine and placebo groups, according to the company. The vaccine did prove safe, if ineffective, BiondVax said.

It’s been a record year for biotech IPOs, and the execs at Nasdaq would like nothing better than to see that momentum continue into the first half of next year.

Since January, 72 biotech and biopharma companies have hit Wall Street, according to Nasdaq head of healthcare listings Jordan Saxe, together raising $13.2 billion.

The latest is Flagship’s Foghorn Therapeutics, which priced its shares last night at $16 apiece, the midpoint of a $15 to $17 range. The Cambridge, MA-based biotech — which initially filed for a $100 million raise on Oct. 2 — is netting $120 million from a 7.5 million-share offering. The proceeds will go right into its gene traffic control platform, including two lead preclinical oncology candidates.

Since before Ilan Ganot started Solid Bio to develop a gene therapy for kids like his son, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Ultragenyx CEO Emil Kakkis has been watching and advising the former investment banker as he navigated the deep waters of drug development.

Just as Solid is getting back up on its feet after a yearlong clinical hold, Kakkis has decided to jump in for a formal alliance.

With a $40 million upfront, Ultragenyx is grabbing 14.45% of Solid’s shares $SLDB and the rights to its microdystrophin construct for use in combination with AAV8 vectors. Solid’s lead program, which utilizes AAV9, remains unaffected. The company also retains rights to other applications of its transgene.