The Google of CRISPR tech? Tech leg­ends Tim Cook and Jeff Hu­ber back Mam­moth Bio­sciences

A start­up led by a group of Bay Area grad stu­dents says it’s build­ing a plat­form that har­ness­es the “search en­gine” func­tion of CRISPR, win­ning $23 mil­lion in back­ing from a slew of high pro­file in­vestors Tues­day.

The com­pa­ny, called Mam­moth Bio­sciences, was co-found­ed by CRISPR leg­end Jen­nifer Doud­na — one of the most fa­mous sci­en­tif­ic pi­o­neers be­hind CRISPR/Cas9 gene edit­ing tech. The oth­er founders in­clude the 29-year-old CEO Trevor Mar­tin, a Stan­ford PhD, and CTO Ash­ley Tehranchi, al­so out of Stan­ford. The duo launched the com­pa­ny with the help of two stu­dents in Doud­na’s lab: Jan­ice Chen and Lu­cas Har­ring­ton, who will lead sci­en­tif­ic re­search. Doud­na heads up the sci­en­tif­ic ad­vi­so­ry board.

Tim Cook

Op­er­at­ing un­der stealth mode un­til re­cent­ly, Mam­moth first stepped out this April with news that it planned to cre­ate a plat­form for di­ag­nos­tics. With tech in-li­censed from Berke­ley, the com­pa­ny wants to ap­ply CRISPR tech to new fron­tiers.

While many de­scribe CRISPR as the “scis­sors” of gene edit­ing, cut­ting DNA and re­plac­ing bits of ge­net­ic ma­te­r­i­al where need­ed, Mam­moth is more in­ter­est­ed in the search func­tion of CRISPR.

Jeff Hu­ber

“CRISPR is bi­ol­o­gy’s search en­gine first,” Mar­tin told TechCrunch in an in­ter­view. “Con­trol + F is the ex­cit­ing part. At core it’s just this amaz­ing search en­gine that we can use to find things. The way that we search for things is just like Google.”

Now, Mam­moth has a round of fresh cap­i­tal to in­vest in its plat­form and staff. The $23 mil­lion round was led by May­field with par­tic­i­pa­tion from NFX and 8VC. Ap­ple’s Tim Cook and the first CEO of Sil­i­con Val­ley can­cer screen­ing start­up Grail, Jeff Hu­ber, al­so joined the round for an un­spec­i­fied amount.


Im­age: Co-founders Lu­cas Har­ring­ton, Trevor Mar­tin, Ash­ley Tehranchi, Jen­nifer Doudb­na and Jan­ice Chen. mam­moth bio­sciences

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Clay Siegall, Morphimmune CEO

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

Clay Siegall will be back in the CEO seat, taking the helm of a private startup working on targeted cancer therapies.

It’s been almost a year since Siegall resigned from Seagen, the biotech he co-founded and led for more than 20 years, in the wake of domestic violence allegations by his then-wife. His eventual successor, David Epstein, sold the company to Pfizer in a $43 billion deal unveiled last week.

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No­vo Nordisk oral semaglu­tide tri­al shows re­duc­tion in blood sug­ar, plus weight loss

Novo Nordisk is testing higher levels of its oral version of its GLP-1, semaglutide, and its type 2 diabetes trial results released today show reductions in blood sugar as well as weight loss.

In the Phase IIIb trial, Novo compared its oral semaglutide in 25 mg and 50 mg doses with the 14 mg version that’s currently the maximum approved dose. The trial looked at how the doses compared when added to a stable dose of one to three oral antidiabetic medicines in people with type 2 diabetes who were in need of an intensified treatment.

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Ly­me vac­cine test com­ple­tion is pushed back by a year as Pfiz­er, Val­ne­va say they'll ad­just tri­al

Valneva and Pfizer have adjusted the end date for the Phase III study of their investigational Lyme disease vaccine, pushing it back by a year after issues at a contract researcher led to thousands of US patients being dropped from the test.

In a March 20 update to clinicaltrials.gov, Valneva and Pfizer moved the primary completion date on the trial, called VALOR, from the end of 2024 to the end of 2025.

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Stuart Peltz, former PTC Therapeutics CEO

Stu­art Peltz re­signs as PTC Ther­a­peu­tics CEO af­ter 25 years

Stuart Peltz, the longtime CEO of PTC Therapeutics who’s led the rare disease drug developer since its founding 25 years ago, is stepping down.

Succeeding him in the top job is Matthew Klein, who joined PTC in 2019 and was promoted to chief operating officer in 2022. In a call with analysts, he said the CEO transition has been planned for “quite some time” — in fact, as part of it, he gave the company’s presentation at the JP Morgan healthcare conference earlier this year.

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Bet­ter Ther­a­peu­tics cuts 35% of staff while await­ing dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tic ap­proval

Digital therapeutics company Better Therapeutics announced on Thursday that it’s cutting 35% of its staff as it awaits FDA clearance for its first product.

The company, which launched eight years ago, is one of a growing group of companies seeking a digital alternative to traditional medicine. The space saw a record $7.5 billion in investments in 2021, according to Chris Dokomajilar at DealForma, with uses spanning ADHD, PTSD and other indications. However, private insurers have been slow to hop on board.

FDA spells out how can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers can use one tri­al for both ac­cel­er­at­ed and full ap­provals

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Steven James, Pionyr Immunotherapeutics CEO

Gilead pass­es on ful­ly ac­quir­ing Pi­o­nyr, as eyes now turn to Tizona, a fel­low sum­mer 2020 buy­out op­tion

Gilead and Pionyr Immunotherapeutics, a biotech trying to follow up on the first generation of checkpoint inhibitors, have “mutually agreed” on a rewrite to their 2020 terms, with Gilead deciding not to buy out the company.

The California biopharma waived its option to acquire the remaining 50.1% of Pionyr, which would have triggered a $315 million upfront payment and up to $1.15 billion down the road. Had Gilead waited to decide, the drugmaker would have had a potential payment to make in the near term under their agreement, a spokesperson said in an email to Endpoints News.

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Zhi Hong, Brii Biosciences CEO

Brii Bio­sciences stops man­u­fac­tur­ing Covid-19 an­ti­body com­bo, plans to with­draw EUA re­quest

Brii Biosciences said it will stop manufacturing its Covid-19 antibody combination, sold in China, and is working to withdraw its emergency use authorization request in the US, which it started in October 2021.

The Beijing and North Carolina biotech commercially launched the treatment in China last July but is now axing the work and reverting resources to other “high-priority programs,” per a Friday update. The focus now is namely hepatitis B viral infection, postpartum depression and major depressive disorders.

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