BioSpace recently spoke with Norman Sussman, chief medical officer at DURECT, a company committed to transforming the treatment of acute organ injury and chronic liver diseases by advancing novel and lifesaving therapies based on its endogenous epigenetic regulator program.

BioSpace spoke with Paula Ragan, CEO and President of X4 Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on restoring healthy immune system function in people with rare diseases. X4’s lead product candidate, mavorixafor (X4P-001), is a potential first-in-class inhibitor of CXCR4.

While the since renamed company Sio Gene Therapies in-licensed one program in Parkinson’s disease, it also in-licensed a pair of gene therapy programs from the University of Massachusetts in GM1 gangliosidosis and Tay-Sachs/Sandhoff disease with the GM1 program being Sio’s lead candidate.

US biotech firm Celularity is a leader in cell therapy development, and is focused on harnessing the therapeutic potential of cells contained in the postpartum placenta. Having raised over $350 million since spinning out from pharma giant Celgene, today the company has multiple cell therapy candidates in both pre-clinical and clinical development, with indications including chronic degenerative diseases such as Crohn’s.

CUE Biopharma CEO Dan Passeri, J.D. joins us for a discussion on the development of the company’s Immuno-STAT platform for the selective targeting and alteration of T cells. Passeri shares the rationale behind his belief in the company’s immunotherapeutic approach, and how the CUE-100 series of candidates in its pipeline are being developed to address a scourge of HPV-related head, neck, and other cancers.

According to FasterCures, which is tracking 326 COVID-19 treatments and 252 vaccines, five companies are developing oral vaccines, and two — ImmunityBio and Vaxart — have progressed to Phase 1 clinical trials.

AltruBio would like to reintroduce itself. After shifting from oncology to immunology, swapping out the board and completing a name change, the biotech is relaunching with a $63 million series A funding round.

A French study has demonstrated that the novel agonist anti-human ChemR23 monoclonal antibody (MAb) designated OSE-230 accelerated recovery from acute inflammation and triggered resolution of chronic inflammation in mice chronic colitis models, preventing fibrosis and reducing tumor development.