Olivia Vizier

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

According to FasterCures, which is tracking 326 COVID-19 treatments and 252 vaccines, five companies are developing oral vaccines, and two — ImmunityBio and Vaxart — have progressed to Phase 1 clinical trials.

AltruBio would like to reintroduce itself. After shifting from oncology to immunology, swapping out the board and completing a name change, the biotech is relaunching with a $63 million series A funding round.

A French study has demonstrated that the novel agonist anti-human ChemR23 monoclonal antibody (MAb) designated OSE-230 accelerated recovery from acute inflammation and triggered resolution of chronic inflammation in mice chronic colitis models, preventing fibrosis and reducing tumor development.

Nevan Charles Elam, JD founded Rezolute Bio ten years ago on the heels of a complex career intersecting law, high tech, and life sciences. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Elam shares the company’s rationale for pursuing congenital hyperinsulinism and diabetic macular edema therapeutics by leveraging monoclonal antibodies and discusses the company’s approach

How does one decide who makes an “under 40” list? After the last nominations come in from staff and readers, we’re left to sort through hundreds of names, with no obvious guideposts for how to do so. Do we want the basic scientist behind a major discovery, or the executive working to translate it into

PsyBio Therapeutics, where Jones is chairman of the scientific advisory board, is commercializing the process. Jones and his team invented a one-pot method of bioprocessing with E. coli to make tryptamines. Starting with 4-hydroxyindole, the process developed by Jones produces psilocybin. He says that this technique provides three key advantages—cheaper, faster, and greener than other methods.

Rain Therapeutics catapulted itself toward pivotal development in September when it picked up a cancer drug from Daiichi Sankyo. Now, the California biotech aims to raise up to $100 million in its Wall Street debut, which will fuel a phase 3 study for the asset in liposarcoma, a cancer that occurs in the body’s fat

It’s been a nice month for Pyxis Oncology: After penning a major licensing deal with Pfizer, the startup now has $152 million extra in the bank to help it push on with its expanded pipeline.

Evan Levine, Co-Founder and CEO, PsyBio Therapeutics is pursuing a paradigm shift in the treatment of mental illness and other neurological disorders by using psychedelics and hallucinogenics. PsyBio biosynthesizes psilocybin and other psychoactive drugs from different plants  and fungi from genetically-modified bacteria. Under the influence of an anxiogenic molecule in a controlled setting, early clinical

ImmunityBio Executive Chairman Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong sat down with Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani to discuss the recent growth of ImmunityBio, it’s work on a vaccine for the coronavirus, and the biotech industry.

Takeda penned a potentially billion-dollar deal with Anima Biotech to work on mRNA translation modulators for neurological diseases. The Japanese pharma also launched a digital health incubator in Shanghai. Fellow Japanese drugmaker Daiichi Sankyo has ushered its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine into a phase 1/2 trial for initial safety and immunogenicity analysis. And more.

Leyden Labs will focus on respiratory viruses with potential to cause pandemics, said Wiedhaup, who’s taking up the CEO role after a career spanning academia, biotech and consulting.

Oncosec have developed another way of delivering genes to tumour cells without the need for viral vectors or nanoparticles. They have taken advantage of the electrotransfer method used by research laboratories to transfer DNA into cells. “When you put energy through the membrane of a cell, it causes it to become porous, and if you

With so many headlines touting drugs in development for the likes of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, an illness in the same ballpark has been back-seated: alcoholic hepatitis (AH), which is on the rise, under-recognized and brings a one-month mortality rate that averages 26%.

ProQR Therapeutics has encouraging early data from a small study that show its experimental RNA-based therapy for a rare, inherited form of vision loss helped patients recover some of their sight. Based on those results, the company is planning to advance its therapy to two pivotal studies that could start later this year.

Dr. Sudarshan Hebbar, Chief Medical Officer, CalciMedica talks about developing drugs that are focused on targeting CRAC channels, calcium release activated calcium channels, in order to modulate these channels to help treat diseases that have a significant inflammatory component.  Initially developed drugs for acute pancreatitis targeting both the pancreas and the lung. Now conducting large

That is the mission of Clene Nanomedicine, which has combined cell biology, solid state physics, and materials science to pioneer the development of Clean-Surfaced Nanocrystal (CSN) therapeutics. The company’s goal is to use this process to enhance the energetic support in neurons and change the way neurodegenerative diseases are treated. PM360 spoke with President and CEO Rob

Chiasma has released phase 3 data supporting its belief that acromegaly patients will prefer to take its oral formulation over existing long-acting injectables.

How it works: The San Francisco–based company engineered a common cold virus called an adenovirus to carry instructions for making two coronavirus proteins into human cells.  There, the proteins can be made to prime the immune system to later fend off the coronavirus.

Anima specializes in treating targets long viewed as “undruggable” by targeting cellular mechanisms that regulate mRNA translation of proteins with specific biological roles in coordinating and regulating translation of individual mRNAs and pathways . . .