Olivia Vizier

The Business of Biotech caught up with Dr. McArthur at PepGen’s Cambridge headquarters to learn more.

Andrew Hall is the CEO of IMV Inc, which has developed a platform based on a lipid-in-oil technology that encapsulates the therapeutic. When injected subcutaneously, the drug remains in a specific location to reinvigorate the immune system to overcome the tumor surveillance that allows cancer to grow.

Portage Biotech is helmed by CEO Ian Walters and CSO Robert Kramer, and backed by three biotech entrepreneurs — UK investor Jim Mellon, ex-Biohaven board member Declan Doogan and early Medivation backer Greg Bailey — who have whipped up a whole slate of different ventures aimed at drug development.

OTX-2002 is our lead Omega Epigenomic Controller™ (OEC) candidate designed to downregulate the expression of c-Myc (MYC), a key gene involved in cellular growth commonly overexpressed in cancer cells. OECs are programmable mRNA medicines that encode a two-part protein: a DNA binding domain that specifies the target location on the DNA, which we call EpiZips™,

Matthew explains, “At Immunome, we believe that the antibodies that these B cells are making have an ability to see the different types of tumor antigens, or the specific epitopes on infectious disease. Our platform allows us to see that disease through the lens of the human B cell. We can interrogate what those antibodies

TFF Pharmaceuticals has leased a plant in Austin, Texas to expand development of its thin film freezing technology, which it says could increase the bioavailability of large molecule drugs.

Recce Pharmaceuticals is developing a new class of synthetic anti-infectives that it says can overcome the hyper-cellular mutation of bacteria and viruses. 

Dr. Judy Chou is the President and CEO of AltruBio which is developing novel immunomodulators to treat immunological diseases such as autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Their first-in-class agnostic antibody has a unique mechanism to regulate T cell homeostasis. Currently, there is a clinical trial for SR-aGVHD, steroid-refractory acute graft-host disease and an investigation is underway

Jeff Cleland is the Chairman, President, and CEO of Ashvattha Therapeutics, initially focusing on demonstrating the ability to deliver drugs that cross tissue barriers like the blood-brain barrier and the blood-retinal barrier to attack inflammation.

Portage Biotech — which is led by two Bristol Myers Squibb vets, CEO Ian Walters and CSO Robert Kramer — is buying out New York’s Tarus Therapeutics in a $21 million all-stock deal that gives it $3 million worth of liabilities on top of four adenosine receptor antagonists, two of which are already in Phase

Pennsylvania-based Immunome, Inc. said its antibody cocktail, dubbed IMM-BCP-01, “retained activity” against the BA.4/5 and BA.2.12.1 subvariants in pseudovirus testing.

While the psychedelic approach to mental health has recently achieved some clinical and regulatory validation, executives in the space warn the drugs cannot cure all and barriers to market remain.

Immunome CEO Purnanand Sarma, Ph.D. joins the Business of Biotech for a discussion on precision antibodies and his company’s discovery platform, which identifies novel therapeutic

When CEO Avanish Vellanki founded and incorporated Rain Therapeutics on his living room couch in the spring of 2017, there was no drug in development, no money, and a team of only four people. Five years later, after halting the development of its first licensed product, the Newark, CA-based precision oncology company awaits topline results

Thin-film freezing (TFF) is an advanced formulation process that can produce stable protein particles of submicron size and is potentially ideal for overcoming some of the challenges described above

“Like the ongoing activities that financial institutions have adopted regarding [their] intentional efforts to be inclusive, the life sciences industry may want to adopt similar approaches to increase the awareness of career opportunities within the field. 

MeiraGTx today announced top-line data from the Phase 1/2 clinical study MGT009 (NCT03252847) of botaretigene sparoparvovec (formerly referred to as AAV-RPGR), an investigational gene therapy in development for the treatment of patients with X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP) with disease-causing variants in the RPGR gene.

The experimental Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals drug fazirsiran can reduce the accumulation of a mutant protein by 83% among people with alpha1-antitrypsin deficiency (AAT) disease, according to results from an open-label phase 2 trial involving 16 volunteers.

The biggest challenge that the pharma and biopharma industries currently face is unwanted immunogenicity.

We see huge potential for growth in precision medicine, particularly precision oncology, in the near future.

New data and a new documentary called “The Human Trial” together illuminate the hard work, sacrifice, and slow, iterative progress in the long search for a biological cure for type 1 diabetes.

Rather than target mutated p53, Rain Therapeutics is looking at normal p53 expression as part of its novel mouse double minute 2 homolog (MDM2) inhibitor therapy. In the coming 12 months, Rain expects to have an interim readout for a Phase II study of its liposarcoma therapy, called milademetan (Rain-32), and a pivotal readout for its Phase III trial

BlueSphere is taking a high-throughput, lower-cost approach to TCR and neoantigen discovery that it thinks will enable multi-targeted cell therapies that stem resistance.

Dr. Diem Nguyen is the CEO of Xalud Therapeutics, a DNA delivery gene therapy company striving to develop and deliver medicines for large, broad-based disease indications like chronic inflammatory diseases, particularly musculoskeletal diseases like osteoarthritis of the knee and as well as neurodegenerative diseases like MS and ALS. Earlier in her career, Diem was the global

Big news from Sernova, one of the companies hoping that implantable stem cells will be a functional cure for diabetes. They recently announced that the first person in their trials with type 1 is completely off injected or infused insulin – and is making their own.

Douglas W. Blayney, MD, FASCO, Clinical researcher and breast oncologist, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. In this video, he speaks about the ASCO 2022 Abstract – Real-world effectiveness of prophylactic granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) early (week 1) and late (weeks 2-3) in the cycle for the prevention of febrile neutropenia (FN) among patients (pts)

We are pleased with the progress made so far in our iNKT agonist programs and look forward to exploring these treatments further in future clinical trials. One recent collaboration that we announced was with Stanford University to explore the use of iNKT agonists with iNKT cell therapy.  

Sernova’s Cell Pouch is an implantable device that releases the primary donor islets. The device is implanted under the skin in a minimally-invasive procedure. At this time, Toleikis noted they are unsure of how long the device will continue to function and release the islets, which he said can read blood sugar levels and produce

Westport, Connecticut’s Portage Biotech presented new data Monday from a Phase I/II study of its invariant natural killer T cell (iNKT) agonist PORT-2, which is being tested for the treatment of melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). 

Within the biopharmaceutical industry, there are companies of various sizes sharing a common goal: to create new treatment options. Successful companies must constantly evaluate their capabilities and know when to expand internally to fill a need