The Bio Report

Though structure-based drug discovery has been long been used, technologic advances have given this approach greater power. ShouTi believes its next-generation, computational, structure-based drug discovery platform will allow it to develop small molecule drugs that are superior in safety and efficacy to biologic and peptide therapies its seeking to replace. We spoke to Raymond Stevens, CEO of Sho...

Virus-like drug conjugates, or VDCs, are a new class of cancer therapies Aura Biosciences is developing to target a broad range of solid tumors. These therapies have a dual mechanism of action. They deliver a toxic payload to cancer cells, but also activate a secondary immune mediated response to kill cancer cells. We spoke to Elisabet de los Pinos, CEO of Aura Biosciences, about the company’s VDC...

While the emergence of CAR-T therapies have been promising, these autologous cellular therapies are costly to produce since they require taking T cells from a patient being treated, altering them, and then infusing them back into the patient. Cellectis is among a growing list of companies pursuing off-the-shelf CAR-T therapies. The company’s U-CARTs, or universal chimeric antigen receptor T cells,...

Though it’s been nearly 20 years since the Human Genome Project provided a blueprint for human biology, it still left much work to be done to understand health and disease at a molecular level. The Sweden-based Human Protein Atlas, which is seeking to map human proteins in cells, tissues, and organs, recently published significant updates to the open-access resource. We spoke to Mathias Uhlén, dir...

In 2020, CSL Behring entered into a global license and commercialization agreement with UniQure for the company’s experimental hemophilia B gene therapy. The expected, one-and-done treatment carries the potential to free people with the genetic bleeding disease from reliance on regular infusions of clotting factor IX for which they are deficient. We spoke to Steve Pascoe, senior vice president and...

The promise of data-driven medicine is that it can accelerate the diagnosis of disease, provide patients with the most effective treatments for their particular conditions, and improve drug development. Sophia Genetics is drawing on extensive information from its global, data-sharing network to make data-driven medicine a reality. We spoke to Emily Paul, product director of platform for Sophia Gen...

The growing convergence of information technology and biotechnology are creating a compelling new group of companies that live in both these worlds at once. Lux Capital, which has long invested in both sectors, has a growing portfolio of these emerging TechBio companies. We spoke to Adam Goulburn, partner at Lux Capital, about his investment process, how he tempers the promise of technology with m...

Cell and gene therapies are among the most promising approaches to treating diseases because they carry the potential to cure chronic and progressive conditions. The problem is that the high cost of producing these therapies, which often need to be tailored to individual patients, limits access to them, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Caring Cross is seeking to change that throug...

KeifeRx is developing a pipeline of orally delivered tyrosine kinase inhibitors to treat neurodegenerative diseases. It has a portfolio of these drugs that it has optimized to penetrate the brain, clear damaged cells, and treat these conditions through the bulk disposal of disease-causing toxic proteins. It believes its approach offers the potential to significantly improve on current treatments,...

When AzurRX BioPharma merged with First Wave Bio last year it renamed itself First Wave BioPharma. The company is developing targeted, non-systemic therapies for gastrointestinal diseases with its lead candidate niclosamide, an approved therapy to treat tapeworms that it believes has anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. The company is developing niclosamide in six GI-indications including...

HCW Biologics is developing immunotherapies to target chronic inflammation associated with aging. The company’s therapeutics are designed to disrupt the link between chronic, low-grade inflammation and age-related disorders. The company believes this type of inflammation is a significant contributing factor to cancer and several chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neuro...

As 2021 fades into the history books, it will be remembered as one with exuberant IPOs, punishing aftermarkets, and a lingering pandemic that once again is turning the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference into a virtual event. We continue our annual tradition of sitting down with STAT Senior Writer Adam Feuerstein to discuss the year that was in biotech, the best and worst CEOs of 2021, and what’...

The p53 protein is known as the “guardian of the genome.” It plays an essential role in suppressing tumors. Rain Therapeutics is targeting a regulator of p53 that is overexpressed in certain cancer and can inactivate it, allowing certain cancers to grow and progress. We spoke to Avanish Vellanki, chairman and CEO of Rain Therapeutics, about the company’s experimental precision therapy milademetan,...

Though HIV has fallen out of the headlines, the virus continues to represent a significant public health threat. American Gene Technologies is developing an experimental cell therapy that it says is potentially curative for HIV. We spoke to Jeff Galvin, CEO and founder of American Gene Technologies, about the state of HIV, the company’s experimental cell therapy for HIV, and why the one-time treat...

The COVID pandemic has called attention to the United States’ reliance on a supply chain that makes access to critical medicines dependent on the ability to make them overseas and ship them in a timely manner. At the same time, harnessing new ways of making biologics, is making it possible to gain significant savings over traditional manufacturing approaches. rBIO is betting it will be able to cos...

The use of smartphones, low-cost sensors, and ubiquitous connectivity is changing the way researchers think about recruiting, monitoring, and interacting with participants in biomedical research. The use of evolving technology is not just eliminating geographic barriers to participation, but also enabling the collection of new types of data. The Scripps Research Digital Trials Center is pioneering...

The body has a natural cellular recycling machinery known as the ubiquitin proteasome system that breaks down unwanted proteins. Kymera Therapeutics has developed a drug discovery platform that exploits this natural biologic process to target disease-causing proteins that had been previously considered undruggable using small molecule therapies. We spoke to Nello Mainolfi, co-founder, president, a...

About 70 percent of daily deaths are caused by aging or age-related diseases. The newly formed Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, or A4LI, is an independent nonprofit advocating for greater investment in scientific research, new measures to recognize the value of extending healthy life expectancy, and steps to expedite the development gerotherapies and regenerative medicines. We spoke to Sonia Ar...

As concerns about the use of animals to test drugs, scientist have sought new ways to analyze the efficacy and toxicity of their products. Genoskin is seeking to enable better, faster, and safer drug development through the use of its proprietary ex vivo human skin platforms for preclinical drug testing. The company provides natural human skin obtained from patients that it maintains in a living a...

While cell therapies have been advancing rapidly, therapies that rely on taking a patient’s own cells, altering them, and reinfusing them back into a patient are costly. Part of the reason why is that the process for doing this is labor intensive. Cellino has developed a platform for producing personalized autologous cell therapies in an automated and scalable fashion. We spoke to Marinna Madrid,...

Integrins are a diverse family of proteins that play an essential role in many cellular biological processes. They also have been implicated a number of autoimmune, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases, as well as fibrosis and cancer. While a number of biologics have come to market that target integrins, drug developers have been stymied in efforts to develop oral therapies that can target these...

As the treatment of cancers has moved toward an increasing emphasis on the role the immune system can play in fighting tumors, a range of new ways to enlist and train the immune system have emerged. Candel Therapeutics is developing oncolytic viral immunotherapies, which it says combines anti-tumor activity while also stimulating the immune system. We spoke to Paul Peter Tak, president and CEO of...

The discovery and cell line development of biotherapeutics has been traditionally a distinct process. Absci is taking what it describes as a more wholistic approach by collapsing the process down and addressing the functionality and manufacturability of therapeutic candidates simultaneously. We spoke to Sean McClain, founder and CEO of AbSci, about how it is using AI and synthetic biology to reinv...

While CAR-T cell therapies have been a promising new area of cancer treatments, they are costly to produce, have had limited success in treating solid tumors, and can carry sometimes serious side effects. Shoreline Biosciences is developing off-the-shelf natural killer and macrophage cellular immunotherapies derived from induced pluripotent stem cells for cancer, inflammatory, and genetic diseases...

The ability to discover new drugs can be limited by the tools and technologies small companies can access. Alloy Therapeutics says it democratizing access to a set of technologies and capabilities that are foundational for discovering and developing biologics. We spoke to Errik Anderson, CEO of Alloy Therapeutics, discusses the challenges of drug discovery the company is seeking to address, its bu...