Cel­gene-part­nered biotech In­hi­brx has had a busy 2019 so far. The La Jol­la, Cal­i­for­nia-based com­pa­ny kicked off an ear­ly-stage on­col­o­gy study, part­nered with blue­bird bio, signed a pact with Italy’s Chiesi Group and se­cured a $40 mil­lion ven­ture cap­i­tal in­jec­tion. On Mon­day, it laid the ground­work for a rough­ly $75 mil­lion IPO.

In­hi­brx is de­vel­op­ing a pletho­ra of bi­o­log­ics — it has three on­col­o­gy pro­grams in hu­man clin­i­cal tri­als, a rare dis­ease pro­gram, for which it ex­pects to ini­ti­ate a hu­man study in the third quar­ter of 2019, as well as two pre­clin­i­cal drugs.

Its lead ex­per­i­men­tal drug tar­gets death re­cep­tor 5, or DR5, and is de­signed to treat mul­ti­ple tu­mor types, in­clud­ing dif­fi­cult-to-treat gas­troin­testi­nal tu­mors and mesothe­lioma both as a monother­a­py and in com­bi­na­tion with chemother­a­py. It is cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed in an ear­ly stage tri­al in pa­tients with sol­id tu­mors in­clud­ing sar­co­mas, and the read­out of that study is ex­pect­ed in the sec­ond half of this year.

Glob­al rights to In­hi­brx’s drug, IN­BRX-103, tar­get­ing CD47 — which pro­tects tu­mor cells from be­ing en­gulfed by macrophages — have been li­censed to Cel­gene $CELG. Mean­while, it has en­tered in­to an op­tion agree­ment with Chiesi for de­vel­op­ment and com­mer­cial­iza­tion rights out­side of North Amer­i­ca for IN­BRX-101 — which is be­ing de­vel­oped for the rare res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­ease Al­pha-1 an­tit­rypsin (AAT) de­fi­cien­cy.

Now, In­hi­brx is look­ing to list on the Nas­daq un­der the sym­bol “$IN­BX” and raise $74.75 mil­lion in the IPO. In a sep­a­rate pri­vate place­ment con­cur­rent with the of­fer­ing, Chiesi is buy­ing $10 mil­lion worth of In­hi­brx shares, ac­cord­ing to In­hi­brx’s fil­ing.

Last month, In­hi­brx raised $40 mil­lion from Viking Glob­al In­vestors — al­to­geth­er the com­pa­ny has so far raised $205 mil­lion since its in­cep­tion. Oth­er in­vestors in the biotech in­clude RA Cap­i­tal, Lil­ly Asia Ven­tures, Ar­row­Mark Part­ners, WuXi Bi­o­log­ics and Alexan­dria.

Im­age: Fer­gu­son Pape Bald­win Ar­chi­tects (FP­BA)

During BIO this year, I had a chance to moderate a panel among some of the top tech experts in biopharma on their real-world use of artificial intelligence in R&D. There’s been a lot said about the potential of AI, but I wanted to explore more about what some of the larger players are actually doing with this technology today, and how they see it advancing in the future. It was a fascinating exchange, which you can see here. The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. — John Carroll

The first time Lori Tipton tried MDMA, she was skeptical it would make a difference.

“I really was, at the beginning, very nervous,” Tipton said.

MDMA is the main ingredient in the club drug known as ecstasy or molly. But Tipton wasn’t taking pills sold on the street to get high. She was trying to treat her post-traumatic stress disorder by participating in a clinical trial.

After taking a dose of pure MDMA, Tipton lay in a quiet room with two specially trained psychotherapists. They sat next to her as she recalled some of her deepest traumas, such as discovering her mother’s body after Tipton’s mother killed two people and then herself in a murder-suicide.

As several Big Pharma players secure biotech partners in the oncolytic virus space for new immuno-oncology combos, Cowen and Perceptive Advisors have come out with their own bet on a startup that promises to shine.

The marquee investors are joining MPM, Deerfield, Celgene, Astellas, Arkin Bio Ventures and UBS Oncology Impact Fund in backing the drug developer, Oncorus, which will now deploy the $79.5 million in Series B cash toward clinical development of its lead program. Other new investors include Surveyor Capital, Sphera Funds, IMM Investment, QUAD Investment Management, UTC Investment, SV Investment Corp and Shinhan Investment-Private Equity, the last five of which are Korean-based funds.

Nearly two years after making its public debut, UK-based NuCana’s mission to make chemotherapies more potent and safer was dealt a blow, after a pivotal study testing its lead experimental drug halted enrollment in a hard-to-treat advanced form of cancer, following a futility analysis.

The drug, Acelarin, is being evaluated for use in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients who were not considered suitable for combination chemotherapy. In the late-stage ACELARATE study — which compared the experimental drug against the chemotherapy gemcitabine — 200 patients had been enrolled by the sponsor, Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, before an analysis from an independent safety and data monitoring panel suggested the study’s main goal would not be met.