Chuck Wil­son Unum

The drum­beat of bad news at Unum Ther­a­peu­tics just won’t stop.

In a fil­ing with the SEC to­day, the trou­bled biotech re­port­ed that its ex­per­i­men­tal ther­a­py AC­TR707 — used in com­bi­na­tion with rit­ux­imab in pa­tients with CD20+ B cell non-Hodgkin lym­phoma — may have been re­spon­si­ble for a pos­si­ble new ma­lig­nan­cy. The FDA slapped a par­tial hold on the study March 4 while the agency and the biotech ex­plore what hap­pened to trig­ger the Grade 3 SAE.

Unum’s stock, which had al­ready sunk deep in­to pen­ny stock ter­rain, dropped 5% Mon­day evening af­ter an 8% drop over the day, leav­ing the stock at 46 cents. The com­pa­ny is helmed by Chuck Wil­son and chaired by At­las’ Bruce Booth. And they’ve had to deal with one set­back af­ter the next since fil­ing to go pub­lic 2 years ago.

The hold came ex­act­ly 2 days af­ter the biotech re­port­ed that it was re­struc­tur­ing the com­pa­ny, lay­ing off 60% of the staff, and re­fo­cus­ing ef­forts away from the trou­ble­some AC­TR707 in fa­vor of a pre­clin­i­cal sol­id tu­mor ef­fort in the pipeline. At the same time, CSO Seth Et­ten­berg re­signed af­ter 5 years with Unum.

Seth Et­ten­berg Unum

Last sum­mer the biotech re­port­ed that its then pre­mier drug — AC­TR087 — was linked to se­ri­ous ad­verse events that in­clud­ed grade 3 neu­ro­tox­i­c­i­ty and cy­tomegalovirus in­fec­tion as well as grade 4 res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress, trig­ger­ing a hold. That came af­ter the IPO, when Unum wait­ed un­til it filed the S-1 to re­port that their drug was linked to two deaths — with 2 cas­es of AC­TR087-re­lat­ed se­vere CRS while one pa­tient died from AC­TR087-re­lat­ed neu­ro­tox­i­c­i­ty.

That al­so trig­gered a hold which was lift­ed just ahead of the IPO.

Unum plans to file an IND ap­pli­ca­tion for BOXR1030 in late 2020 as it works to get back in­to the clin­ic. It has a long way to go, though, in restor­ing faith among in­vestors.

So­cial im­age: Chuck Wil­son, Unum Ther­a­peu­tics

Stephen Hahn went before a Senate committee Wednesday and declared he’s fighting. “Every one of the decisions we have reached has been made by career FDA scientists based on science and data, not politics,” he exclaimed, adding that “FDA will not permit any pressure from anyone to change that. I will fight for science.”

A few hours later, he was undermined by President Donald Trump when a reporter asked if he was okay with stricter vaccine guidelines that the FDA was said to be cooking up. “That has to be approved by the White House. We may or may not approve it. That sounds like a political move,” he decided.

About four months after completing an extension to its Series A, Monte Rosa Therapeutics is putting its next foot forward with another heap of cash.

The Boston-based biotech is back with $96 million in Series B financing with a goal to get its lead program ready for IND-enabling studies by the end of the year. Though Monte Rosa is keeping its specific target a secret for now, the company has been researching how to utilize its protein degradation technology in breast cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, among other areas.

It’s been less than a month since Lumen Bioscience announced a $16 million Series B to engineer spirulina — a nutrient-packed super food — for diseases like traveler’s diarrhea, norovirus and C. difficile colitis. And now, the biotech has pulled in another $4 million to do the same for Covid-19.

The approach is quite similar to other gastrointestinal targets the company is pursuing, co-founders and Brian Finrow and Jim Roberts said. The Seattle-based company is working on a camelid antibody cocktail to combat GI infection common among Covid-19 patients. In a study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, a majority of Covid-19 patients showed GI and respiratory symptoms, and 25% had only GI symptoms.

The FDA has been insisting for months that a Covid-19 vaccine had to be at least 50% effective – a measure of transparency meant to shore public trust in the agency and in a vaccine that had been brought forward at record speed and record political pressure. But now, with concerns of a Trump-driven authorization arriving before the election, the agency may be raising the bar.

The FDA is set to release new guidance that would raise safety and efficacy requirements for a vaccine EUA above earlier guidance and above the criteria used for convalescent plasma or hydroxychloroquine, The Washington Post reported. Experts say this significantly lowers the odds of an approval before the election on November 3, which Trump has promised despite vocal concerns from public health officials, and could help shore up public trust in the agency and any eventual vaccine.