Jessica Reeder worries about ticks and the diseases they carry. She had Lyme disease, her brother had Lyme disease, and every fall her children come home from school with notes reminding parents to do a nightly tick check. Even in Philadelphia, where Reeder lives, the bloodsuckers lurk in the woods around the playground. Her family used to go tent camping with friends, but they stopped after a few people in the group contracted Lyme.

Dance BioPharma has joined the Bay Area exodus, but its story is unlike some of the more high-profile departures.

Data on the company’s pacemaker-neurostimulator combo are probably good enough to permit further development – but first the company wants to hook a partner.

Amid the debate about why insulin costs so much lies a second question: if the hormone can be delivered more efficiently, will people with diabetes need less insulin? It’s not just a question that’s come up in the era of the artificial pancreas, as people with type 1 diabetes (T1D) work with technology that uses an algorithm to anticipate their blood glucose levels and make constant adjustments to their insulin needs. A company called Diasome is pushing the idea further, by trying to take insulin to the place where it would go if created by islet cells and released by a human pancreas: straight to the liver.

Due to the need for chemotherapy and the risks caused by allogeneic stem cell transplants in Fanconi anaemia patients, Rocket Pharma has developed gene therapy candidate RP-L102, which doesn’t need conditioning and corrects the gene mutation underlying Fanconi. Rocket CEO Guarav Shah explains RP-L102’s mechanism of action, as well as how the company is working to improve its cell culturing methods and overcome continuing risks of head and neck cancer.

Drug resistance presents a significant challenge to oncologists. Therapies that were once capable of destroying the tumor are rendered ineffective once one resistant cancer cell begins to multiply. Part of the challenge of developing effective cancer therapies is tackling the multiple pathways by which drug resistance arises. Isaac Israel, CEO of Kitov Pharmaceuticals, and his team are hoping to rise to this challenge. Results from recent preclinical studies suggest that their small molecule drug, NT-219, can effectively block two signaling proteins that function in two different resistance pathways.

Dance Biopharm today said it rebranded as Aerami Therapeutics and will move its headquarters to Durham, N.C. The rebranding comes as the company seeks strategic partners for its Dance 501 inhaled human insulin. The company also hopes the rebranding will help progress into pivotal registration studies and expand to include inhaled therapeutics for endocrinology diseases.