Following a collaboration agreement in November 2020, Augmenta Bioworks and TFF Pharmaceuticals have selected AUG-3387 as their lead candidate in COVID-19.

The clinical-stage biopharma unveiled the $74 million series B financing Wednesday, brought in from new investors Slate Path Capital, Palkon Capital, ArrowMark Partners and 683 Capital on top of existing backers like Sporos Bioventures.

Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals has added to its collection of RNA collaborations with a $40 million upfront deal with Horizon Therapeutics.

You might expect to find Dr. Robert Hariri strolling through the headquarters of Celularity, the biotechnology company he founded, outfitted in PPE and sterile paper slippers. But when we caught up with this 62-year-old, physically fit aviator, he was in his light-filled office in the 150,000-square-foot Florham Park, New Jersey facility, wearing a black shirt, black pants, and black boots. It’s a look that downplays his role as the pioneer of placenta-based stem-cell research to treat life-threatening diseases and his transformative contributions in immuno-oncology and cell therapeutics.

The furthest along is a vaccine candidate co-developed by Pfizer, the U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant, and Valneva SE, a French biotech company. In March, the companies kicked off a Phase 2 trial in 600 people ages 5-65. The vaccine, which would be given in two to three doses, is very similar to LYMErix, but it targets six strains of Lyme bacteria—not just those common in North America, but in Europe as well—instead of the single strain that LYMErix targeted. Finding volunteers to take it has been easy, aside from a lull during COVID-19 lockdowns, says Thomas Lingelbach, president and CEO of Valneva. “The tick issue has reached a completely different scale,” he says. “Ticks are everywhere. Fortunately, there is a high and increasing level of awareness.”

At Fore Biotherapeutics, we are leveraging our functional genomics platform, Foresight, to match populations of patients with rare cancer mutations to targeted therapies that have a high probability of making a difference. Our mission is to provide patients with unaddressed cancer mutations with rapid access to the right medicines.