For Anima Biotech, it’s all in the translation—that is, mRNA translation. Drug development and small molecule discovery have long targeted small binding pockets or catalytic sites on proteins’ surfaces. This approach has yielded many therapeutic molecules as well as substantial returns on investment, but it is not without its pitfalls.

Chairman and CEO Krish Krishnan is an experienced biotech executive. But even he didn’t expect to go from self-funding Krystal Biotech to IPO in 18 months. The Pittsburgh-based company, which Krishnan co-founded with his wife and COO Suma Krishnan, is working to develop to develop treatments for rare, orphan skin diseases caused by the absence of, or a mutation in, a single gene.

Social media has become increasingly important in the biopharma space as it not only allows emerging clinical-stage companies to efficiently increase their visibility online by posting interesting content, but it also provides a unique platform to engage with members of specific disease communities. By listening to these members’ voices online, valuable insight can be gained about the direction in which a company should go.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to see a protein being made in a cell in real time? And wouldn’t it be even better if you could use that capability to discover new drugs to previously “undruggable” targets, creating new medicines? Well that’s exactly what Anima Biotech is aiming to do. “We are going after mRNA translation to specifically target protein production using small molecules,” Yochi Slonim, co-founder and CEO of Anima, told BioSpace.

After four decades, it’s time to get our summers back. This time of year in New England should mean beach days, ice cream, hikes in the mountains. Instead, for thousands of residents, year in and year out, it means a debilitating bout of Lyme disease, the often-painful tick-borne bacterial illness that arrived with day-glo in the ’80s — but then, unlike leg warmers, never left.

As the threat of Lyme disease grows and fears surrounding it spread faster than the ticks that carry the infection, researchers are developing two vaccine or vaccine-like approaches to prevent this increasingly problematic disease. But don’t expect to get one soon. They are at least three to five years away from clinical use, according to their developers.

A novel topical gene therapy, developed by Krystal Biotech, shows promise for treating wounds of patients with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB). The therapy KB103 targets the type VII collagen gene (COL7A1), missing in patients with DEB, to improve wound closure and skin cohesion.

Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer Elizabeth Jeffords told BioWorld that the endpoints in Alkahest Inc.’s just-begun phase II trial with human plasma fraction GRF-6021 will not only test how well patients bounce back from hip or knee arthroplasty but “could absolutely support the work in cognitive and neurodegenerative indications as well,” where data rolled out earlier this month.