Startup boasting ‘gobstopper-style’ vaccine delivery draws big partnerships — and backing from Adjuvant Capital

Glenn Rockman (Adjuvant Capital)

July 7, 2021 07:00 AM EDTUpdated 07:48 AM

Startup boasting 'gobstopper-style' vaccine delivery draws big partnerships — and backing from Adjuvant Capital

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

For as long as a prime-boost vaccine regimen — a model that’s been front and center in the fight against Covid-19 — has been deployed, scientists have been looking for ways to compress multiple doses into a single shot.

“Minimizing the touch points with patients is something that everyone’s always wanted,” said Glenn Rockman, managing partner and founder of public health-focused VC firm Adjuvant Capital.

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May 24, 2022 08:49 AM EDTUpdated 03:54 PM

R&D

In Focus

A new era of treatment: How biomarkers are changing the way we think about cancer

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

AJ Patel was recovering from a complicated brain surgery when his oncologist burst into the hospital room yelling, “I’ve got some really great news for you!”

For two years, Patel had been going from doctor to doctor trying to diagnose his wheezing, only to be dealt the devastating news that he had stage IV lung cancer and only six months to live. And then they found the brain tumors.

“What are you talking about?” Patel asked. He had never seen an oncologist so happy.

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ProFound Therapeutics founding team

May 26, 2022 06:00 AM EDT

Financing

Startups

Flagship's latest biotech could turn some of the thousands of new proteins it discovered into therapies — and it has $75M to start

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

Flagship Pioneering, the incubator of Moderna and dozens of other biotechs, says it has landed upon tens of thousands of previously undiscovered human proteins. The VC shop wants to potentially turn them into therapeutics.

Like other drug developers that have turned proteins into therapeutics (think insulin for diabetes), Flagship’s latest creation, ProFound Therapeutics, wants to tap into this new trove of proteins as part of its mission to treat indications ranging from rare diseases to cancer to immunological diseases.

Richard Silverman, Akava Therapeutics founder and Northwestern professor

May 26, 2022 05:19 AM EDTUpdated 06:31 AM

Startups

This time around, Lyrica's inventor is developing his Northwestern discoveries at his own biotech

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

Richard Silverman was left in the dark for the last five years of clinical development of the drug he discovered. The Northwestern University professor found out about the first approval of Lyrica, in the last few days of 2004, like most other people: in the newspaper.

What became one of Pfizer’s top-selling meds, at $5 billion in 2017 global sales before losing patent protection in 2019, started slipping out of his hands when Northwestern licensed it out to Parke-Davis, one of two biotechs that showed interest in developing the drug in the pre-email days, when the university’s two-person tech transfer team had to ship out letters to garner industry appetite.

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Associate Director, Information Scientist, Library & Information Services

Gilead Sciences

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Peter Thompson, Terremoto Biosciences interim CEO

May 25, 2022 08:00 AM EDTUpdated 11:35 AM

Financing

Startups

Former Principia team looks to shake up covalent small molecules again, this time at 'earthquake' scale

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

Terremoto Biosciences goes back a long ways, in a sense, to about a dozen years ago when Principia Biopharma was founded by UCSF professor Jack Taunton. Peter Thompson initially helmed the biotech.

The company helped expand covalent small molecule inhibitors beyond oncology and into autoimmune disease by targeting cystine. But that amino acid is uncommon in a lot of proteins, offering fewer drug targets than, say, lysine, which is present in most proteins of interest. So, over the years, Taunton went back to the drawing board to check out that second amino acid.

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David Ricks, Eli Lilly CEO (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

May 25, 2022 02:21 PM EDTUpdated 03:08 PM

Pharma

Manufacturing

Eli Lilly set to invest $2.1B in home state manufacturing boost

Tyler Patchen

News Reporter

Eli Lilly is looking to expand its footprint in its home Hoosier State by making a major investment in manufacturing.

The pharma is investing $2.1 billion in two new manufacturing sites at Indiana’s LEAP Lebanon Innovation and Research District in Boone County, northwest of Lilly’s headquarters in Indianapolis.

The two new facilities will expand Lilly’s manufacturing network for active ingredients and new therapeutic modalities, including genetic medicines, according to a press release.

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May 25, 2022 02:19 PM EDTUpdated 28 minutes ago

Coronavirus

Updated: US sees spike in Paxlovid usage as Merck's molnupiravir and AstraZeneca's Evusheld are slower off the shelf

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

New data from HHS show that more than 162,000 courses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral Paxlovid were administered across the US over the past week, continuing a streak of increased usage of the pill, and signaling not only rising case numbers but more awareness of how to access it.

In comparison to this week, about 670,000 courses of the Pfizer pill have been administered across the first five months since Paxlovid has been on the US market, averaging about 33,000 courses administered per week in that time.

May 25, 2022 02:09 PM EDTUpdated 03:21 PM

Pharma

Manufacturing

Pfizer and CDMOs ramp up Paxlovid manufacturing with Kalamazoo plant expansion leading the way

Tyler Patchen

News Reporter

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to evolve, pharma companies and manufacturers are exploring how to step up production on antivirals.

Pfizer is planning to expand its Kalamazoo-area facility to increase manufacturing capabilities for the oral Covid-19 antiviral Paxlovid, according to a report from Michigan-based news site MLive. The expansion of the facility, which serves as Pfizer’s largest manufacturing location, is expected to create hundreds of “high-skilled” STEM jobs, MLive reported. No details about the project’s cost and timeline have been released, but according to MLive, Pfizer will announce the details of the expansion at some point in early June.

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Senior Finance Associate

Atlas Venture

Cambridge, MA, USA

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May 25, 2022 12:46 PM EDT

Pharma

FDA+

FDA spells out the rules and restrictions for states seeking to import drugs from Canada

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

The FDA is offering more of an explanation of the guardrails around its program that may soon allow states to import prescription drugs in some select circumstances from Canada, but only if such imports will result in significant cost reductions for consumers.

While the agency has yet to sign off on any of the 5 state plans in the works so far, and PhRMA’s suit to block the Trump-era rule allowing such imports is stalled, the new Q&A guidance spells out the various restrictions that states will have to abide by, potentially signaling that a state approval is coming.

Simba Gill, CEO of Evelo Biosciences

May 25, 2022 11:19 AM EDT

Financing

While down 87% YOY, Evelo gets Flagship and others to infuse new capital for comeback hope

Paul Schloesser

Associate Editor

Just four years after Flagship spinout Evelo Biosciences went public in an IPO worth $85 million, the biotech has seen its share price tank from $13 a share this time last year (ultimately reaching a peak of over $17) to now under $1.50. And today, it looks like Flagship still thinks the fledging biotech, in a down market, is still worth something after initial pre-IPO backing from the likes of Google’s GV, Celgene, Mayo Clinic and Alexandria Venture.

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