Super-secretive anti-aging biotech Calico tees up the first visible clinical trial of an experimental drug. And it’s for cancer?

October 19, 2020 09:09 AM EDT

Super-secretive anti-aging biotech Calico tees up the first visible clinical trial of an experimental drug. And it’s for cancer?

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Jason Mast

Editor

Over the past 7 years, Calico has been so much more than your average, run-of-the-mill secretive biotech players. It’s a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, to repurpose an old Winston Churchill line dating from the time he confronted the Iron Curtain surrounding Stalin’s thoughts.

Launched by industry legend Art Levinson of Genentech fame, with the infinitely deep pockets of Google for support, one of the few big headlines the anti-aging biotech has sparked focused on a major alliance with AbbVie — a giant outfit that conversely likes to show off its drug prospects whenever it can. Together, they’ve been focused on diseases that limit life span — quite an arc of ailments.

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Healthcare Disparities and Sickle Cell Disease

Frank Lee

CEO of Forma Therapeutics

In the complicated U.S. healthcare system, navigating a serious illness such as cancer or heart disease can be remarkably challenging for patients and caregivers. When that illness is classified as a rare disease, those challenges can become even more acute. And when that rare disease occurs in a population that experiences health disparities, such as people with sickle cell disease (SCD) who are primarily Black and Latino, challenges can become almost insurmountable.

September 22, 2021 06:56 AM EDTUpdated 01:34 PM

Startups

The Endpoints 11: They've got mad money and huge ambitions. It's time to go big or go home

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

These days, selecting a group of private biotechs for the Endpoints 11 spotlight begins with a sprint to get ahead of IPOs and the M&A teams at Big Pharma. I’ve had a couple of faceplants earlier this year, watching some of the biotechs on my short list choose a quick leap onto Nasdaq or into the arms of a buyer.

Vividion, you would have been a great pick for the Endpoints 11. I’m sorry I missed you.

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Dave Lennon, former president of Novartis Gene Therapies

September 21, 2021 03:29 PM EDTUpdated 7 hours ago

People

Bioregnum

So what happened with Novartis Gene Therapies? Here's your answer

Over the last couple of days it’s become clear that the gene therapy division at Novartis has quietly undergone a major reorganization. We learned on Monday that Dave Lennon, who had pursued a high-profile role as president of the unit with 1,500 people, had left the pharma giant to take over as CEO of a startup.

Like a lot of the majors, Novartis is an open highway for head hunters, or anyone looking to staff a startup. So that was news but not completely unexpected.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Senior Analyst, Oncology

Brass Tacks Health

Remote

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Jacob Van Naarden (Eli Lilly)

September 20, 2021 01:15 PM EDTUpdated 02:06 PM

Bioregnum

Exclusives: Eli Lilly out to crash the megablockbuster PD-(L)1 party with 'disruptive' pricing; reveals cancer biotech buyout

Paul Schloesser

Editorial Intern

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

It’s taken 7 years, but Eli Lilly is promising to finally start hammering the small and affluent PD-(L)1 club with a “disruptive” pricing strategy for their checkpoint therapy allied with China’s Innovent.

Lilly in-licensed global rights to sintilimab a year ago, building on the China alliance they have with Innovent. That cost the pharma giant $200 million in cash upfront, which they plan to capitalize on now with a long-awaited plan to bust up the high-price market in lung cancer and other cancers that have created a market worth tens of billions of dollars.

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September 21, 2021 06:49 AM EDT

Editor's note

Who are the women supercharging biopharma R&D? Nominate them for this year's special report

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

The biotech industry has faced repeated calls to diversify its workforce — and in the last year, those calls got a lot louder. Though women account for just under half of all biotech employees around the world, they occupy very few places in C-suites, and even fewer make it to the helm.

Some companies are listening, according to a recent BIO survey which showed that this year’s companies were 2.5 times more likely to have a diversity and inclusion program compared to last year’s sample. But we still have a long way to go. Women represent just 31% of biotech executives, BIO reported. And those numbers are even more stark for women of color.

September 22, 2021 10:06 AM EDTUpdated 10:36 AM

FDA+

FDA+ roundup: BsUFA III ready for showtime, court tells FDA to re-work compounding plan, new guidance updates and more

Zachary Brennan

Senior Editor

The FDA has now spelled out what exactly will be included in the third iteration of Biosimilar User Fee Act (BsUFA) from 2023 through 2027, which similarly to the prescription drug deal, sets fees that industry has to pay for submitting applications, in exchange for firm timelines that the agency must meet.

This latest deal includes several sweeteners for the biosimilar industry, which has yet to make great strides in the US market, with shorter review timelines for safety labeling updates and updates to add or remove an indication that does not contain efficacy data.

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Joshua Liang, Clover Biopharmaceuticals CEO

September 22, 2021 08:56 AM EDT

R&D

With world still in sore need of doses, Clover says its Covid-19 vaccine is 67% effective in Phase III

Josh Sullivan

Associate Editor

With concerns about the Delta variant rising and much of the world still in desperate need of vaccine doses, a Chinese biotech announced Wednesday that a new shot has shown positive results in a large trial against Covid-19, including new variants.

Clover Biopharmaceuticals announced Wednesday that its vaccine candidate showed 79% efficacy against the Delta variant in a Phase II/III trial dubbed Spectra, and 67% effective against Covid-19 overall.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Senior Scientific Research Analyst

American Association for Cancer Research

Philadelphia, PA, USA

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Jean Bennett (Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP Images)

September 22, 2021 07:30 AM EDT

Startups

Luxturna inventor Jean Bennett starts a new gene therapy company to tackle rare diseases left behind by pharma, VCs

Jason Mast

Editor

A few years ago Jean Bennett found herself in a surprising place for a woman who invented the first gene therapy ever approved in the United States: No one, it seemed, wanted her work.

Bennett, who designed and co-developed Luxturna, approved in 2018 for a rare form of blindness, had kept building new gene therapies for eye diseases at her University of Pennsylvania lab. But although the results in animals looked promising, pharma companies and investors kept turning down the pedigreed ophthalmology professor.

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David Meek, new Mirati CEO (Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

September 20, 2021 07:55 AM EDT

People

Fresh off FerGene's meltdown, David Meek takes over at Mirati with lead KRAS drug racing to an approval

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

In the insular world of biotech, a spectacular failure can sometimes stay on any executive’s record for a long time. But for David Meek, the man at the helm of FerGene’s recent implosion, two questionable exits made way for what could be an excellent rebound.

Meek, most recently FerGene’s CEO and a past head at Ipsen, has become CEO at Mirati Therapeutics, taking the reins from founding CEO Charles Baum, who will step over into the role of president and head of R&D, according to a release.