Sum­mit shares shoot up on pos­i­tive DMD PhII; As­traZeneca and al­lies back a new in­cu­ba­tor/ac­cel­er­a­tor at Babra­ham

→ Shares of Ox­ford-based Sum­mit Ther­a­peu­tics $SMMT shot up 28% on Thurs­day morn­ing af­ter rolling out pos­i­tive bio­mark­er da­ta from a Phase II study of Duchenne MD pa­tients. Re­searchers say the study of utrophin mod­u­la­tor ezutro­mid demon­strat­ed a 23% de­crease in myosin. The drug is part­nered with Sarep­ta Ther­a­peu­tics, which mar­kets the con­tro­ver­sial drug eteplirsen in the US.

→ With the help of some close in­dus­try al­lies, the Babra­ham Re­search Cam­pus in Cam­bridge, UK has es­tab­lished a new biotech in­cu­ba­tor and ac­cel­er­a­tor now in busi­ness to give some fledg­ling out­fits some key ear­ly sup­port. Some of the com­pa­ny ex­ecs who work at Babra­ham have al­ready of­fered to help with a men­tor­ing pro­gram, while the new fa­cil­i­ty of­fers young life sci­ences com­pa­nies eas­i­er ac­cess to lab fa­cil­i­ties and tech. Phar­ma gi­ant As­traZeneca and its big sub­sidiary Med­im­mune are lend­ing a hand, along with the trade group One Nu­cle­us (now run by Tony Jones) and Rx­Cel­er­ate, a com­pa­ny that of­fers in­dus­try-grade pre­clin­i­cal stud­ies to clients look­ing to bet­ter un­der­stand the po­ten­tial of the ex­per­i­men­tal drugs they’re work­ing with. There have been a num­ber of ini­tia­tives like this aimed at grow­ing a big­ger biotech hub in and around the Gold­en Tri­an­gle of Lon­don, Ox­ford and Cam­bridge.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.