The Bio Report

Ovarian cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers affecting women, and it is expected to claim nearly 13,000 lives in the United States in 2025. Despite progress in survival rates, nearly 80 percent of patients are still diagnosed at advanced stages, when the disease has already spread and is difficult to treat. Imunon’s experimental DNA-mediated immunotherapy is designed to deliver interleukin-...

China’s emergence as a biotech superpower may have appeared to happen suddenly, but it reflected a long-term vision and policies over many years that enabled its success. As biotechnology transforms not only medicine but also industries such as food, fuel, and materials, the competition between China and the United States to shape the future bioeconomy is intensifying. We spoke to Drew Endy, assoc...

The ARC Virtual Cell Atlas uses high-throughput single-cell genomics, artificial intelligence, and open science to understand the complexities of cellular behavior. Developed through a partnership between the ARC Institute, 10x Genomics, and Ultima Genomics, the public domain resource integrates data from hundreds of millions of cells. By curating and harmonizing vast amounts of single-cell measur...

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia is a condition that affects preterm infants, especially those born with underdeveloped lungs who require prolonged oxygen therapy or mechanical ventilation to help them breathe after birth. It is characterized by damage and abnormal development of the lung tissue and airways, often resulting from life-saving interventions necessary for babies born very prematurely. Airwa...

MASH, a chronic and progressive form of fatty liver disease that until recently was known as NASH, affects millions of people in the United States, and its incidence continues to rise. In fact, MASH is now among the leading causes of liver transplantation in the United States. 89bio is developing an experimental therapy to target multiple disease mechanisms of the condition. We spoke to Rohan Pale...

The average kidney transplant recipient experiences kidney failure within 10 to 12 years after a transplant, putting them on a cycle that ends with kidney failure and a need for a new transplant. This cycle adds to strains on transplant recipients, payers, providers, and the healthcare system and taxes the limited supply of organs for transplantation. Eledon Pharmaceuticals is seeking to extend th...

Antimicrobial resistance is projected to kill up to 10 million people a year by 2050. One particular area of concern is drug-resistant gonorrhea, where existing therapies are being exhausted. Taxis Pharmaceuticals is developing therapies to combat evolving superbugs by targeting their cellular infrastructure and disrupting the mechanisms that fuel antimicrobial resistance. We spoke to Greg Mario,...

Brain tumors are difficult to treat in part because of the blood-brain barrier, the need to protect healthy and sensitive tissue surrounding tumors, and the limits of existing therapies. While there have been great advances in other types of cancer, there’s been relatively little progress in treating these CNS tumors. Plus Therapeutics is developing targeted radiotherapies that provide high doses...

Macrocycles are complex compounds that can interact with targets that are often unreachable with traditional small molecules. Orbis Medicines is addressing the challenge with its nCycles, synthetic macrocycle drugs that are orally available but hit targets that would otherwise require biologic therapies. We spoke to Morten Graugaard, CEO of Orbis Medicines, about its class of synthetic macrocycles...

Animal testing for experimental therapies is slow, expensive, and an imperfect predictor for how a drug will act in humans. The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in July announced a program to advance innovative laboratory technologies that model human biology, enabling faster, less expensive testing. We spoke to Stacey Adam, vice president of scientific partnerships for the FNIH an...

Many cancer patients are prescribed opioids to manage pain associated with their disease, but studies have shown that the use of these pain killers naturally mutes the immune response and can reduce the efficacy of immunotherapies. Glycyx Therapeutics is developing a drug it believes can allow opioids to relieve pain while preventing them from working against immunotherapies. We spoke to Lorin Joh...

When Takeda in 2023 paid Nimbus Therapeutics $4 billion upfront and the potential for two additional $1 billion milestone payments for its experimental TYK2 inhibitor, the deal was an eye-popping validation of Nimbus’ approach. The company, an early innovator in a computational chemistry, has now integrated AI into its approach to drug discovery. And though it’s been an innovator in technology, it...

Despite the successes of immunotherapies to date, about 75 to 80 percent of cancer patients don’t respond to current immunotherapy treatments. Faron Pharmaceuticals is hoping to help change that with its experimental therapy bexmarilimab, which is in development to treat myelodysplastic syndrome. Bexmarilimab targets CLEVER-1, a checkpoint inhibitor found on macrophages, a type of myeloid cell tha...

There’s been a stunning lack of innovation around male contraceptives when it comes to the area of male contraceptives. Men have the choice between a vasectomy, a procedure innovated in the 19th century, or condoms, which date back to at least King Minos in Crete in 3000 BCE. Next Life Sciences is hoping to change that with its Plan A, an experimental hydrogel that is injected into the vas deferen...

There have been great advances in the treatment of hepatitis C with the advent of curative therapies, but hepatitis B has proven far more elusive. That’s due to differences in the way the virus replicates and how it creates a reservoir of viral DNA in the cells in the liver. nChroma Bio, the result of a merger between Chroma Medicine and Nvelop Therapeutics, thinks it has an answer. It’s developin...

While AI has been seductive in its promise for revolutionizing drug development, one of the constraints remains the quality of the data that is used by any given platform. BPG Bio, an early innovator in the application of AI to drug development as Berg, is taking what it calls a “biology-first” approach. It capitalizes on its proprietary biobank to conduct multi-omics analysis to understand the bi...

Despite the market success of GLP-1 agonists to treat obesity, many patients suffer side effects such as nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. These medicines also cause significant loss of muscle mass. And when someone discontinues use, they often regain the weight they lost. Skye Bioscience is developing nimacimab, an experimental therapy that has the potential to induce weight loss by inhibiting the...

Many companies are seeking to develop non-opioid treatments for pain, but Persica Pharmaceuticals may be taking a surprising approach for chronic low-back pain. The company’s lead experimental therapy for the condition is an antibiotic. That may sound odd, but it turns out that about half of chronic low back pain cases are due to bacterial infections that occur after herniation of the spinal disc...

Though there are plenty of therapeutic alternatives for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, there are no approved biologics for treating acute exacerbations of these conditions. Connect Biopharma believes that’s an opportunity. It's experimental therapy rademikibart has shown promise treating exacerbations and providing sustained improvements. We spoke to Barry Quart, CEO of...

When Vanderbilt University Medical Center began to consider how big data and precision medicine were going to impact both research and development and clinical care, it struck on the idea of building a large-scale biobank and tying it to its store of millions of electronic health records. That ultimately led to the founding of Nashville Bioscience, a for-profit subsidiary of the medical center. We...

Spirulina, also known as blue-green algae, is edible. It can be engineered to cost-effectively produce biologics that can be taken orally. Though people have long sought to do this, Lumen Bioscience has developed platform technology that solved the various challenges is engineering spirulina to produce medicines. We spoke to Brian Finrow, co-founder and CEO of Lumen, about the company’s platform t...

Cancer is a global disease, and BeOne Medicines believes it should develop its cancer therapies for global markets. To do so, it’s taking innovative approaches to clinical trials, pricing, and manufacturing to enable it to support patients not only in high-income countries but also in low- and middle-income countries. We spoke to Matt Shaulis, general manager of North America for BeOne Medicines,...

The advent of immunotherapies is transforming cancer care. While early efforts have focused on enabling T cells to attack cancers, Myeloid Therapeutics is developing next-generation immunotherapies that use mRNA to train myeloid cells to attack cancer. We spoke to Daniel Getts, founder and CEO of Myeloid Therapeutics, about the limitations of existing immunotherapies, the role myeloid cells play i...

Despite having taken steps to prepare for a possible pandemic, the United States fared poorly during the COVID outbreak relative to other developed nations. It also sharpened political divides as conspiracy theories and misinformation spread on social media. In “COVID Wars: America’s Struggle Over Public Health and Personal Freedom,” tech entrepreneur-turned-historian Ronald Gruner takes a deep di...

GLP-1 agonists have been a breakthrough for the treatment of obesity, a global problem with serious health risks. While the benefits of these therapies are seen as outweighing the risks, there have been some concerns about the loss of muscle mass, particularly in older people using these drugs. iBio is developing next-generation obesity therapies that may be able to be used in combination with GLP...