Olivia Vizier

“However, the mere presence of antibodies to a virus does not necessarily mean an individual has protective immunity to reinfection,” Ian Chan, CEO of Boston-based biotech developer Abpro, told Healthline.

When Boehringer Ingelheim and OSE Immunotherapeutics teamed up in 2018 to develop OSE’s first-in-class checkpoint inhibitor, it was clear BI had high hopes for the immuno-oncology asset: The closely held German company paid about $18 million upfront but then piled on royalties and milestones, making the deal worth $1.4 billion to OSE.

While vaccines target specific viruses, Dutch start-up Leyden Labs is hunting down commonalities in viral families and working on the delivery of intranasal molecules that can protect humans from both known and future viruses.

Interim blinded data from an ongoing phase 2 clinical trial (NCT04098406) suggest treatment effect of catalytically active nanocrystalline gold (CNM-Au8; Clene Nanomedicine, Salt Lake City, UT) for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

“Candida albicans has been the prominent species causing vaginal yeast infections, however, we are seeing a notable shift in the etiology candidiasis with non-albicans Candida species gaining prominence,” Scynexis Vice President, Clinical Development and Medical Affairs Nkechi Azie, MD, said.

As Celularity makes its most significant clinical progress to date, the company is putting theories born of 20 years of postpartum placental stem cell research into practice. Could the production platform it’s building be the key to accessible, affordable allogeneic cell therapy?

A company called Vaxart is developing a COVID-19 vaccine that comes in the form of a tablet that could be stored at room temperature and even mailed to people at home.

Windtree Therapeutics Chief Executive Officer Craig Fraser called 2020 a transformative and productive year for the Bucks County company focused on the development of life-saving therapeutics for acute cardiovascular and pulmonary disorders.

The company spent roughly three months looking at potential locations for its global headquarters, including Boston and the Washington, D.C., region.

In his 13 years at Genzyme, Michael Wyzga noticed something about East Coast drugmakers. Execs would often jet from Boston or New York to San Francisco to find more assets, and completely miss the work being done in flyover states, like Texas or Wisconsin.

BioSpace recently spoke with Jonathan Rigby, Group CEO of Revolo Biotherapeutics, a biotherapeutic company working to revolutionize the treatment of autoimmune and allergic diseases by achieving superior long-term disease remission through resetting the immune system.

Scynexis announced in October that it submitted a new drug application to the FDA for ibrexafungerp for the treatment of vulvovaginal candidiasis. The target action date is set for June 1, 2021. According to the company’s website, another phase 3 trial investigating the efficacy of ibrexafungerp in preventing recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis is ongoing.

A similar approach—a broad-spectrum antiviral in the form of a nasal spray—has been taken by Leyden Labs in the Netherlands, who recently struck a deal for a €40M Series A funding round to advance its product.

The next generation of Covid-19 vaccines in development could come as a pill or a nasal spray and be easier to store and transport than the current handful of shots that form the backbone of the world-wide vaccination effort.

Vaxart is among the first to take an oral COVID-19 vaccine into the clinic. “Making the vaccine is only part of the problem,” says CSO and founder Sean Tucker. “The rate-limiting step will be how fast can you put it in people’s arms.”

By measuring the functional MAPK activity of different RAS mutations, researchers have developed a method they believe could help identify patients with RAS-mutated cancers likely to benefit from MEK inhibitors like trametinib (Novartis’ Mekinist).

Imagine a future where such diseases as Multiple Sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s and Parkinson’s Disease can be controlled or stopped altogether.

The company, Valneva SE, has a vaccine that could be more variant-proof, giving it an edge over other shots in what may be an annual campaign against a disease that’s already killed more than 3 million people. The first participant in its phase three trials will be dosed this week. If successful, that could lead to

Which is why OSE Immunotherapeutics is developing a vaccine that aims to be pan-coronavirus. The formulation for CoVepiT, which focuses on inducing a lasting T cell immune response, is made up of 11 total viral targets. This way, even if one changes, there are still 10 other potentially valid targets.

After raising a monster $152 million in a series B round last month, Pfizer darling Pyxis Oncology is ready to share more details about what it’ll be working on with all that cash.

Thomas Feldborg and Daria Rokina set off nearly every afternoon to explore this city. They leave from their hotel in the Charlestown neighborhood, pushing their baby carriage, some days heading deep into downtown, others choosing a path along the Charles River.

The company Richman leads, Gain Therapeutics, went public in March through an IPO. Regardless, he still thinks that going public through a SPAC is a trend that’s sustainable, even saying Gain Therapeutics considered it.

A third of those American adults now refusing to get vaccinated would get vaccinated if they could take a pill instead of getting the vaccine shot, according to a poll conducted by Quadrant Strategies and commissioned by biotechnology company Vaxart, Inc. A pill vaccine is expected to overcome vaccine resistance of millions of Americans.

“Differences in heavy chain polypeptides allow these immunoglobulins to function in different types of immune responses and at particular stages of the immune response. The polypeptide protein sequences responsible for these differences are found primarily in the Fc fragment,” explained Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, world-class bioscientist and executive chairman of ImmunityBio

BioSpace recently spoke with Norman Sussman, chief medical officer at DURECT, a company committed to transforming the treatment of acute organ injury and chronic liver diseases by advancing novel and lifesaving therapies based on its endogenous epigenetic regulator program.

BioSpace spoke with Paula Ragan, CEO and President of X4 Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on restoring healthy immune system function in people with rare diseases. X4’s lead product candidate, mavorixafor (X4P-001), is a potential first-in-class inhibitor of CXCR4.

While the since renamed company Sio Gene Therapies in-licensed one program in Parkinson’s disease, it also in-licensed a pair of gene therapy programs from the University of Massachusetts in GM1 gangliosidosis and Tay-Sachs/Sandhoff disease with the GM1 program being Sio’s lead candidate.

US biotech firm Celularity is a leader in cell therapy development, and is focused on harnessing the therapeutic potential of cells contained in the postpartum placenta. Having raised over $350 million since spinning out from pharma giant Celgene, today the company has multiple cell therapy candidates in both pre-clinical and clinical development, with indications including chronic degenerative

CUE Biopharma CEO Dan Passeri, J.D. joins us for a discussion on the development of the company’s Immuno-STAT platform for the selective targeting and alteration of T cells. Passeri shares the rationale behind his belief in the company’s immunotherapeutic approach, and how the CUE-100 series of candidates in its pipeline are being developed to address