The Bio Report

Some 70 percent of potential therapeutic targets are believed to be beyond the reach of conventional small molecule therapies or biologics. Macrocyclic peptides offer a way to get at elusive targets while providing desirable characteristics of both small molecule drugs and biologics. They offer oral bioavailability, can permeate cells, and engage complex targets with specificity. Unnatural Product...

Through the creation of a chemical programming language, Chemify said it has been able to expand the chemical space it can explore. Chemify is combining this unique programming language with robotics and AI to digitize chemistry. The company, though, has much grander ambitions than being a drug developer. It wants to be the infrastructure for the industry. We spoke to Lee Cronin, founder and CEO o...

Prescription digital therapies, the use of software to treat disease, are growing in number. Already there have been 140 prescription digital therapies that have been granted market access through national regulatory and reimbursement pathways. That represents a five-fold increase in the since 2021, according to the IQVIA Digital Health Trends 2024 report. We spoke to Murray Aitken, executive dire...

There has been growing interest in the potential of psychedelics to treat a variety of mental health conditions. While some focus has been put on synthesizing compounds that can target the receptors psychedelics bind to without inducing their hallucinatory effects, Filament Health is taking a notably different approach. The company, co-founded by Ben Lightburn who previously ran a firm specializin...

Gain Therapeutics' platform technology Magellan leverages AI, structural biology, and physics-based models to identify novel binding sites on otherwise undruggable proteins implicated in diseases. The company’s experimental Parkinson’s disease therapy has the potential to slow or stop progression of the neurodegenerative condition by stabilizing a lysosomal enzyme implicated in the disease. We spo...

We continue our holiday tradition by welcoming STAT News Senior Biotech Writer Adam Feuerstein for our annual look back at the year that was in biotech and what’s ahead for the industry with the JPMorgan Healthcare conference and beyond in 2025. Feuerstein offers his view on finance and dealmaking in 2024, new drug approvals, and his annual take on the best and worst CEOs of the year. We also disc...

Prolific Machines uses light to precisely control virtually any function in any cell to transform what is possible with biomanufacturing. In combination with optogenetics and AI, the technology has the potential to impact a wide range of industries, from food production to pharmaceuticals, by enabling new capabilities, reducing costs, and improving sustainability. We spoke to Deniz Kent, co-founde...

ImpriMed is working to deliver on the promise of precision medicine by using a patient’s live cancer cells to see how they respond to different treatment options and artificial intelligence to predict which medicines will work best. The company has had impressive results with its customers to date, but the catch is that it has initially targeted its service to the veterinary market, and its dogs a...

One of the limitations of small molecule drugs and monoclonal antibodies is the difficulty they face in binding to a large number of proteins that could prove to be critical targets in combating various diseases. Aikium is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology to create a new class of protein biologics called SeqRs that are designed to bind to disordered regions of...

Esophageal cancer is a growing healthcare concern with a steady increase in the number of cases in the last four decades, a development that runs counter to what’s been seen in other major types of cancer. Some 22,000 people are diagnosed each year in the United States with the disease and it is responsible for 16,000 deaths annually. Now, though, Lishan Aklog, chairman and CEO of Lucid Diagnostic...

While existing immunotherapies have changed cancer care, there are several types of cancer where they have limited or no efficacy. Pheast Therapeutics is addressing that by looking to macrophages, part of the innate immune system. These white blood cells gobble up pathogens, cancer cells, and other foreign substances. Certain tumors, though, can evade their attack by expressing checkpoints that se...

About 98 percent of the the human genome consists of non-protein coding regions known as the “dark genome.” Once derided as “junk DNA,” these regions are increasingly understood to play a critical role in the regulation of the genome and offer a novel means of targeting diseases. Haya Therapeutics is exploring long non-coding RNAs as potential therapies to treat a range of diseases. We spoke to Sa...

One of the promises of AI is to redefine what’s possible by enabling the discovery of compounds that exist in a much larger chemical space than scientists have previously been able to explore. Deepcure is using AI and physics to discover small molecule therapies that can bind to difficult to target proteins. We spoke to Kfir Schreiber, co-founder and CEO of Deepcure, about the company’s AI technol...

The BET family of proteins regulates gene expression. Their overexpression has been implicated in both cancer and inflammatory diseases. Vyne Therapeutics is developing oral and topical BET inhibitors that treat inflammatory conditions ranging from rheumatoid arthritis to the skin condition vitiligo. We spoke to Vyne CEO David Domzalski and Vyne Chief Scientific Officer Iain Stuart, about the role...

In August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Adaptimmune’s Tecelra, the first engineered cell therapy to treat a solid tumor. The T cell receptor gene therapy is approved to treat synovial sarcoma, a rare soft tissue cancer that most often affects young adults. We spoke to Adrian Rawcliffe, CEO of Adaptimmune, about the approval, how TCR therapies differ from CAR T therapies, and what...

Hibernation is not just a matter of deep sleep. Animals that hibernate are able to do so without suffering damage to tissue and muscle. Understanding the biology of hibernation can unlock potential insights into obesity, heart attack and stroke, muscle atrophy, neuroprotection, and longevity. Fauna Bio is studying genomic data from so-called "extreme mammals" and applying its proprietary AI platfo...

Senescent cells, ones that no longer divide but are metabolically active, are associated with aging. They are also implicated in a broad range of aging-related diseases including cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative conditions. In the case of cancer, these cells can help protect tumors from a person’s immune system. Immorta Bio is seeking to address aging-related diseases by targeting senescent...

From cell to cell within a given tissue, variability exists. Single-cell sequencing technologies from 10X Genomics is helping researchers and drug developers understand cellular diversity in tissue once thought to be made up of homogenous populations. This has the potential to lead to new understandings of diseases, open up new targets for drug developers, and provide for more tailored approaches...

The DDR pathway plays a critical role in repairing DNA damage in healthy cells that would otherwise cause mutations or cell death. When this pathway is altered and becomes unable to repair this damage, mutated cells can grow out of control and become cancerous. They can also be more resistant to standard chemotherapies and radiation. Aprea Therapeutics is developing therapies to target mutations i...

Nearly 70 percent of patients with chronic conditions fail to take their medicines as prescribed. This can lead to poor outcomes and greater healthcare costs. Vivani Medical, which has developed implantable drug delivery technology, said it can provide steady drug release for up to six months with a single implant. This not only can address the problem of non-compliance, but can also reduce side e...

One of the key obstacles to developing new drugs and diagnostics is the lack of access to longitudinal biological and clinical patient data. Culmination Bio, a spin-out of Intermountain Health, is building the largest patient data platform with more than 40 years of de-identified patient electronic health records and biospecimen data. We spoke to Lincoln Nadauld, president and CEO of Culmination B...

NAMPT is a critical enzyme that regulates how cells use energy. It can also play an important role in the ability of cancer cells to survive, grow, and spread. While it’s been recognized as a potential target to treat certain cancers, developing NAMPT inhibitors have been challenging because they can disrupt energy metabolism in healthy cells. Remedy Plan Therapeutics believes it’s overcome the ch...

The emergence of CRISPR, a powerful tool for gene editing, promises to correct devastating genetic diseases, but it also raises concerns about how it will be used and who will make those decisions. Neal Baer, in his new book “The Promise and Peril of CRISPR,” brings together a series of essays by bioethicists, geneticists, and others who explore ethical and policy considerations raised by the tech...

Speeding Protein Engineering with Whether it’s the development of new biotherapeutics, or replacing hydrocarbons from their role in industrial manufacturing, engineering proteins suited for a task is a time consuming and expensive process. Cradle Bio has developed generative AI technology to accelerate protein engineering by reducing the number of experiments needed to arrive at a product candidat...

With the emergence of GLP-1 agonists to treat obesity, there has been growing interest in the use of peptide-based medicines. Protagonist Therapeutics has developed technology that can take these target specific and potent therapies and allow them to be delivered orally. The company has a collaboration with Johnson & Johnson for an oral peptide that blocks the IL-23 receptor that’s in developm...