February 15, 2023 03:08 PM EST
Financing
Deals

The top 100 biotech VCs: Who's stay­ing at the ta­ble and what do they want now?

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

As we all know only too well, the old playbook on biotech investing got thrown out the window with the end of the IPO boom at the beginning of 2022. We recently tracked VCs’ performance last year and listed the top 100 players in the field. And then I gathered a group of top VCs to talk about how it’s all working in 2023. Here’s our conversation.

This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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SPONSORED
March 27, 2023 06:00 AM EDT

Forge Bi­o­log­ics’ cGMP Com­pli­ant and Com­mer­cial­ly Vi­able Be­spoke Affin­i­ty Chro­matog­ra­phy Plat­form

Victoria Maharaj

M.S.,Technical Sales & Scientific Advisory, Forge Biologics

Forge Biologics has developed a bespoke affinity chromatography platform approach that factors in unique vector combinations to streamline development timelines and assist our clients in efficiently entering the clinic. By leveraging our experience with natural and novel serotypes and transgene conformations, we are able to accelerate affinity chromatography development by nearly 3-fold. Many downstream purification models are serotype-dependent, demanding unique and time-consuming development strategies for each AAV gene therapy product1. With the increasing demand to propel AAV gene therapies to market, platform purification methods that support commercial-scale manufacturing of high-quality vectors with excellent safety and efficacy profiles are essential.

Luke Miels, GSK chief commercial officer
March 30, 2023 07:34 AM EDTUpdated 09:11 AM
Deals
Pharma

GSK picks up Scynex­is' FDA-ap­proved an­ti­fun­gal drug for $90M up­front

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Lei Lei Wu

News Reporter

GSK is dishing out $90 million cash to add an antifungal drug to its commercial portfolio, in a deal spotlighting the pharma giant’s growing focus on infectious diseases.

The upfront will lock in an exclusive license to Scynexis’ Brexafemme, which was approved in 2021 to treat a yeast infection known as vulvovaginal candidiasis, except in China and certain other countries where Scynexis already out-licensed the drug.

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Feng Zhang (Susan Walsh/AP Images)
March 29, 2023 11:28 AM EDT
R&D

In search of new way to de­liv­er gene ed­i­tors, CRISPR pi­o­neer turns to mol­e­c­u­lar sy­ringes

Lei Lei Wu

News Reporter

Bug bacteria are ruthless.

Some soil bacteria have evolved tiny, but deadly injection systems that attach to insect cells, perforate them and release toxins inside — killing a bug in just a few days’ time. Scientists, on the other hand, want to leverage that system to deliver medicines.

In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, MIT CRISPR researcher Feng Zhang and his lab describe how they engineered these syringes made by bacteria to deliver potential therapies like toxins that kill cancer cells and gene editors. With the help of an AI program, they developed syringes that can load proteins of their choice and selectively target human cells.

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Jeff Bluestone (R), Sonoma Biotherapeutics CEO
March 28, 2023 07:30 AM EDT
Financing
Bioregnum

Jef­frey Blue­stone brings his start­up haul to $400M+, join­ing forces with Re­gen­eron on cell ther­a­pies

These days, when Jeffrey Bluestone gets together with his contemporaries in science, the conversation often turns to retirement plans.

But a little more than three years ago, Bluestone reached a momentous turning point in his career, exiting a prestigious post at UCSF, where he had spent decades in the scientific pursuit of new therapies. And it had nothing to do with retirement anytime in the near future.

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Hugo Peris, Spiral Therapeutics CEO
March 30, 2023 06:48 AM EDTUpdated 09:37 AM
Deals

Hear­ing-fo­cused biotech grabs trio of pro­grams from Oton­o­my's fire sale

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Otonomy may be shutting down, but the lessons learned there will live on at another biotech working on new treatments for hearing loss.

San Francisco-based Spiral Therapeutics has bought certain assets related to three of Otonomy’s programs, ranging from data, patent rights, and know-how to inventory. That includes data around Otonomy’s twice-failed lead program, OTO-104 (Otividex), a sustained-exposure formulation of dexamethasone.

Mathai Mammen, FogPharma's next CEO
March 30, 2023 06:00 AM EDTUpdated 06:16 AM
People
Startups

Math­ai Mam­men hands in J&J's R&D keys to lead Greg Ver­dine’s Fog­Phar­ma 

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

In the early 1990s, Mathai Mammen was a teaching assistant in Greg Verdine’s Science B46 course at Harvard. In June, the former R&D head at Johnson & Johnson will succeed Verdine as CEO, president and chair of FogPharma, the same month the seven-year-old biotech kickstarts its first clinical trial.

After leading R&D at one of the largest drugmakers in the world, taking the company through more than half a dozen drug approvals in the past few years, not to mention a Covid-19 vaccine race, Mammen departed J&J last month and will take the helm of a Cambridge, MA biotech attempting to go after what Verdine calls the “true emperor of all oncogenes” — beta-catenin.

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March 29, 2023 07:36 AM EDTUpdated 3 hours ago
R&D
In Focus

No longer ‘dead or just hi­ber­nat­ing,’ drug­mak­ers re­turn to heart med­i­cines

Lei Lei Wu

News Reporter

In 2015, now-FDA Commissioner Robert Califf joined industry, academic and regulatory representatives in Washington to discuss why more drugs weren’t in development for cardiovascular diseases, the leading US cause of death and once a mainstay of pharmaceutical industry blockbusters.

The group pointed to many reasons. Clinical trials could take years and testing was expensive. Wide availability of generic drugs made the commercial prospects uncertain. Their paper title summed up the mood: “Cardiovascular Drug Development: Is it Dead or Just Hibernating?”

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Sally Susman, Pfizer EVP and chief corporate affairs officer
March 28, 2023 12:30 PM EDT
Pharma
Marketing

Q&A: Pfiz­er cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions chief Sal­ly Sus­man dis­cuss­es book craft­ed in pan­dem­ic and per­son­al lessons

Beth Snyder Bulik

Senior Editor

From the political arena to the finance and beauty industries to pharmaceuticals, Pfizer’s Sally Susman has broken barriers, stereotypes and conventions. And now the chief communicator is “Breaking Through,” the title of her first book about effective and innovative communications launching today. The full official title is “Breaking Through: Communicating to Open Minds, Move Hearts, and Change the World.”

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Kevin Lee, Bicycle Therapeutics CEO
March 28, 2023 10:29 AM EDTUpdated 11:14 AM
Deals

No­var­tis rides with Bi­cy­cle for new pact on tar­get­ed ra­dio­ther­a­pies

Lei Lei Wu

News Reporter

Novartis has inked a three-year deal with Bicycle Therapeutics to develop new targeted radiotherapies for cancer.

Novartis will pay Bicycle $50 million upfront, with downstream milestones adding up to a potential $1.7 billion. In exchange, Bicycle will use its virus-based platform to discover new bicyclic peptides, which it calls bicycles, that would be used for radiotherapies. Those bicycles would act as a homing beacon for radioactive isotopes, delivering them to cancer cells to kill the cells while limiting radiation to healthy tissue.

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The top 100 biotech VCs: Who's stay­ing at the ta­ble and what do they want now?

Forge Bi­o­log­ics’ cGMP Com­pli­ant and Com­mer­cial­ly Vi­able Be­spoke Affin­i­ty Chro­matog­ra­phy Plat­form

GSK picks up Scynex­is' FDA-ap­proved an­ti­fun­gal drug for $90M up­front

In search of new way to de­liv­er gene ed­i­tors, CRISPR pi­o­neer turns to mol­e­c­u­lar sy­ringes

Jef­frey Blue­stone brings his start­up haul to $400M+, join­ing forces with Re­gen­eron on cell ther­a­pies

Hear­ing-fo­cused biotech grabs trio of pro­grams from Oton­o­my's fire sale

Math­ai Mam­men hands in J&J's R&D keys to lead Greg Ver­dine’s Fog­Phar­ma 

No longer ‘dead or just hi­ber­nat­ing,’ drug­mak­ers re­turn to heart med­i­cines

Q&A: Pfiz­er cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions chief Sal­ly Sus­man dis­cuss­es book craft­ed in pan­dem­ic and per­son­al lessons

No­var­tis rides with Bi­cy­cle for new pact on tar­get­ed ra­dio­ther­a­pies