The company behind Moderna has a new RNA startup looking to disrupt drugmaking. The goal? 100 new drugs in 10 years

Avak Kahvejian (Flagship Pioneering)

May 10, 2021 06:30 AM EDTUpdated 07:22 AM

The company behind Moderna has a new RNA startup looking to disrupt drugmaking. The goal? 100 new drugs in 10 years

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

When Flagship Pioneering propped up a small research team back in 2017 to study a little-known circular form of RNA, it wasn’t exactly a high-profile project. But with mRNA providing the blueprint, that nascent biotech thinks it may have found the goldmine of all goldmines — and it’s all founded on a quixotic little molecule dubbed “eRNA.”

Laronde, founded on science from Flagship general partner Avak Kahvejian and led by CEO-partner and former Vividion chief Diego Miralles, thinks eRNA could be the future of drugmaking, augmenting or replacing altogether standard drugs. On Monday, the biotech formally launched with a $50 million check from Flagship and some huge ambitions despite its relatively meager pocketbook.

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Adaptive Design Methods Offer Rapid, Seamless Transition Between Study Phases in Rare Cancer Trials

Rupa Doshi

Executive Director, Oncology Program Strategy

Rare cancers account for 22 percent of cancer diagnoses worldwide, yet there is no universally accepted definition for a “rare” cancer. Moreover, with the evolution of genomics and associated changes in categorizing tumors, some common cancers are now characterized into groups of rare cancers, each with a unique implication for patient management and therapy.

Adaptive designs, which allow for prospectively planned modifications to study design based on accumulating data from subjects in the trial, can be used to optimize rare oncology trials (see Figure 1). Adaptive design studies may include multiple cohorts and multiple tumor types. In addition, numerous adaptation methods may be used in a single trial and may facilitate a more rapid, seamless transition between study phases.

Marianne De Backer (L) and Jeff Hatfield

August 5, 2021 01:30 AM EDT

Deals

Bayer nabs star biotech Vividion with a $2B buyout and an ‘arms-length’ pact, pulling a partner out of the IPO conga line

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Vividion is canceling that IPO it filed. Instead of following the industry-wide migration to Nasdaq, the biotech that has captured considerable attention for its still-preclinical work finding cryptic pockets to bind to on proteins is going to work for Bayer now.

The pharma giant is putting out word today that it has bought out Vividion for $1.5 billion in cash and another half-billion dollars in milestones.

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Josh Hoffman, outgoing Zymergen CEO (Zymergen)

August 3, 2021 04:50 PM EDTUpdated August 3, 11:57 PM

People

R&D

UPDATED: Synbio unicorn Zymergen jettisons founding CEO, cuts guidance as customers report lead product doesn't work

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

Zymergen, just months off a $500 million IPO that put the synthetic bio firm in rarified air, has now ejected its founding CEO and downgraded its revenue forecasts after customers reported its lead film product doesn’t work as advertised, the company said Tuesday afternoon.

CEO Josh Hoffman will leave his role and sacrifice his board seat immediately in favor of Jay Flatley, the former CEO of Illumina who will take the lead role on an interim basis as the company conducts a search for its next leader.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Director, Clinical Program Management

Pliant Therapeutics

South San Francisco, CA, USA

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Zymergen co-founders Zach Serber, Josh Hoffman, and Jed Dean (Zymergen via website)

August 4, 2021 04:02 PM EDTUpdated 2 hours ago

Financing

Zymergen's sudden implosion shocked biotech. A lingering loan could make things even worse

Kyle Blankenship

Managing Editor

As former synbio unicorn Zymergen picks up the pieces from its spectacular implosion Tuesday, an outstanding loan from Perceptive Advisors — the only blue-chip biotech crossover investor to touch Zymergen’s fundraising efforts — could make the situation worse, according to public documents.

In December 2019, more than a year before Zymergen filed for what would eventually become a $500 million IPO, the “biofacturing” firm signed a $100 million credit facility with Perceptive to help supplement the nearly $700 million the company had raised across four VC rounds.

Jeffrey Bluestone, Sonoma CEO (Photo credit: Steve Babuljak)

August 4, 2021 07:00 AM EDT

People

Startups

Jeff Bluestone just raised $265M to develop curative cell therapies. We asked him how

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Jeff Bluestone had some big goals in mind when he decided to make a switch from a decades-long career in academia and non-profit research to a biotech startup CEO. And now — 18 months after the $40 million launch party — he has a whole lot more money on hand to pay for the considerable amount of work ahead at Sonoma Biotherapeutics.

This morning Bluestone is taking the wraps off a $265 million B round after boosting the core syndicate of A-list investors he started with. Even by today’s standards, that sum dwarfs the kind of $100 million-plus megarounds that have become standard fare in biotech over the last 2 years.

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August 4, 2021 09:46 AM EDTUpdated 11:00 AM

FDA+

Biogen, Eisai are pushing for another accelerated Alzheimer's OK — this time for BAN2401

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Now that the door at the FDA has been opened wide for Alzheimer’s drugs that can demonstrate a reduction in amyloid, Biogen and its partners at Eisai are pushing for a quick OK on the next drug to follow in the controversial path of aducanumab.

In a presentation to analysts, Eisai neurology chief Ivan Cheung outlined some bullish expectations for their newly-approved treatment and set the stage for what he believes will be a fast follow for BAN2401 (lecanemab) — after a dry spell in new drug development that’s lasted close to 20 years.

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Paul Hudson, Sanofi CEO (Eric Piermont/AFP via Getty Images)

August 2, 2021 06:08 PM EDTUpdated August 3, 04:33 PM

Deals

UPDATED: Sanofi buys mRNA player Translate Bio for $3.2B. And the price fits a popular range for biotech M&A

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson is dead serious about his intention to vault directly into contention for the future of mRNA vaccines.

A year after paying Translate Bio $TBIO a whopping $425 million in an upfront and equity payment to help guide the pharma giant to the promised land of mRNA vaccines, Sanofi closed the deal with a buyout early Tuesday, spending $38 a share in a $3.2 billion buyout.

Translate’s stock $TBIO soared after the market closed Monday when Reuters reported the first word of the acquisition just hours ahead of the formal announcement. The wire service, though, didn’t have a price to report in its scoop, and investors chased the stock up 78% in the wild ride that followed. Once the price was announced, gains shriveled to 29% ahead of the bell.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Director-Regulatory

Icosavax, Inc.

Seattle, WA, USA

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Matt Gline (L) and Pete Salzmann

August 2, 2021 07:30 AM EDTUpdated 09:13 AM

Deals

UPDATED: Roivant bumps stake in Immunovant with a $200M deal. But with M&A off the table, shares crater

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Roivant has worked out a deal to pick up a chunk of stock in its majority-owned sub Immunovant $IMVT, but the stock buy falls far short of its much-discussed thoughts about buying out all of the 43% of shares it doesn’t already own.

Roivant, which recently inked a SPAC move to the market at a $7 billion-plus valuation, has forged a deal to boost its ownership in Immunovant by 6.3 points, ending with 63.8% of the biotech’s stock following a $200 million injection. That cash will bolster Immunovant’s cash reserves, giving it a $600 million war chest to fund a slate of late-stage studies for its big drug: the anti-FcRn antibody IMVT-1401.

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Tadataka Yamada (Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

August 4, 2021 06:32 PM EDTUpdated 2 minutes ago

People

Science pioneer, pharma research chief, global health advocate and biotech entrepreneur Tadataka ‘Tachi’ Yamada has died

Jason Mast

Editor

Tadataka Yamada, a towering physician-scientist who made his name in academia before transforming drug development at GSK and developing vaccines for malaria and meningitis at the Gates Foundation, died unexpectedly of natural causes at his home in Seattle Wednesday morning.

He was 76. Frazier Venture Partner David Socks confirmed his death.

Known widely by the mononym “Tachi,” Yamada had a globetrotting career and arrived in industry relatively late in life. A 2004 Independent article noted GSK had asked Yamada to stay on beyond his approaching 60th birthday, the company’s usual retirement age. Yamada would continue working for the next 17 years, steering the Gates Foundation’s global health division for 6 years, funding Jim Wilson’s gene therapy work when few would touch it, launching Takeda Vaccines and co-founding a series of high-profile biotechs.