Reata Pharmaceuticals has shown that perseverance can pay off. Its lead project, bardoxolone, which is now focused on rare kidney diseases, is forecast to sell $1.3bn in 2024 after earlier flopping in a broader indication. The company should soon find out whether bardoxolone is approvable, with phase III data in the project’s first indication, Alport syndrome, due in the second half of the year. And Reata and analysts alike are confident after positive results from the phase II portion of the same study.

Touting a new, more robust class of immune-oncology drugs to date, Noxopharm has released data from the first series of preclinical studies confirming that idronoxil (IDX), the active ingredient in the company’s anti-cancer drug candidate, Veyonda, not only activates, but potentially boosts the function of current immuno-oncology drugs.

How did a youthful vendor of IT services, faced with a personal exposure to crippling illness, attract some of the best minds in biotech to launch a company with a then-untested RNA technology that today is a contender for leadership in the rarified space of inherited retinal disease? The answer may lie in the ambitiously definitive name that 36-year-old founder Daniel de Boer gave to his enterprise with a mission: ProQR – an active synonym for finding cures.

Vyome Therapeutics reported results from two clinical trials of its anti-acne candidate VB-1953; the bactericidal, antibiotic topical gel kills sensitive and resistant strains of C.acnes infection, and has been shown to reduce inflammation, at the Society for Investigative Dermatology annual meeting in Chicago.

Celyad’s leadership team talks to Scrip about the critical nature of the coming months for its lead cancer therapy product, and CAR-T market differentiation.

It is one of the biggest hurdles NASA must overcome before astronauts embark on long duration space travel to Mars or building permanent settlements on the moon: how to minimize the heavy toll exacted on even the most physically fit human bodies in zero gravity. So to help ensure astronauts don’t arrive at their destination too weak to explore, the space agency has teamed up with Pluristem, an Israeli biotech company, to investigate whether injecting them with cells derived from a mother’s nutrient-rich placenta can increase muscle volume — a process now in trials on Earth for the elderly.

A growing number of researchers are transitioning from the traditional academic route to entrepreneurship. In doing so, these individuals often find themselves in unexpected leadership roles. Prior to Noxopharm, I spent a significant amount of time as a medical researcher at The University of Sydney and developed a scientific hypothesis that led me to enter the biotechnology industry and ultimately found several companies, serving as their CEO.