The Bio Report

The difficulty in diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease and identifying it at its earliest stages when interventions offer the best opportunity for success, is one of the critical challenges in addressing the neurodegenerative condition. CorTechs Labs has developed quantitative analysis software that allows physicians to analyze brain images to diagnose and monitor patients with the diseases. We spoke to...

As people age, the ability of their eyes to focus on objects near to them weakens. The condition, known as presbyopia, affects more than 1.8 billion people worldwide. Though reading glasses provide a solution to the problem, Orasis Pharmaceuticals is developing a corrective eyedrop it says will provide an alternative. We spoke to Elad Kedar, CEO of Orasis, about aging eyes, its experimental eye dr...

Ben Zeskind likens Immuneering’s platform technology to noise-cancelling headphones. Infact, the company’s use of the term “Disease Cancelling Technology” speaks directly to that. The approach, he says, allows the company to build a pipeline of drug candidate that address aspects of disease that have eluded tradition drug development approaches. We spoke Zeskind, CEO of Immuneering, about the comp...

One reason immunotherapies fail is because of the ability to tumors to alter the microenvironment in which they exist and hide themselves from detection by the immune system. In some indications, as few as 20 percent of patients benefit from checkpoint inhibitors. Oncolytics Biotech is developing pelareorep, an immune-oncolytic virus that activates the innate and adaptive immune systems, triggerin...

The brain converts short-term memories into long-term memories through the formation and stabilization of new connections between neurons. Tetra Therapeutics is working to treat cognitive impairment and memory loss from Alzheimer’s disease by developing an experimental therapy intended to stabilize these connections. We spoke to Mark Gurney, CEO of Tetra Therapeutics, about memory loss in Alzheime...

A holiday tradition at The Bio Report is to take a moment to reflect on the year past and look ahead to the new year with Adam Feuerstein, senior writer and national biotech columnist for STAT. We talked to Feuerstein about some of the highs and lows of the year in biotech, a few of the big stories he followed, and the big fourth quarter for biotech stocks. Feuerstein offers us a look at the best...

We spend a lot of time on The Bio Report talking about innovation. We are living at a time of great scientific advances that are translating into remarkable therapies that are changing people’s lives. Sometimes, though, the type of innovation needed to address a global health problem has more to do with access and delivery than technology. This was brought home to me when my friend Menghis Bairu,...

Inhaled insulin has been one of those biotech ideas that have seemed better on paper than in practice. Huge investments have been made to carry these products through challenging development only to end in market flops. Aerami Therapeutics, a company founded by one of the pioneers in the field, is advancing its version of inhaled insulin and building a pipeline of other inhaled biologics behind it...

In August, Nabriva Therapeutics won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for Xenleta for the treatment of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia in adults. It was the first new antibiotic with a novel mechanism of action approved by the FDA in nearly two decades for the condition. We spoke to Ted Schroeder, CEO of Nabriva about Xenleta’s unique mechanism of action, why it may be less prone t...

Healthcare decisions are often flawed because of the limited information on which they are based. But with the growing ability to capture massive amounts of data digitally and apply artificial intelligence to its analysis, there is a growing potential to gain better insights into healthcare and improve patient outcomes. Komodo Health has an ambitious plan to do that with its AI-drive platform that...

In the United States, more than 100,000 people are on a transplant waiting list and many other simply do not qualify. In 2009, 25 people per day died while on the waiting list. Transplant procedures are costly and require lifelong use of immunotherapies. BioLife4D is seeking to disrupt organ transplantation with the development of bioprinted hearts produced using a patient’s own cells. The technol...

Sermo describes itself as a “virtual doctors’ lounge” where physicians can express their opinions and interact with other doctors. One of the newer features on the physician-only social network is the ability to crowdsource solutions for difficult cases. We spoke to Erin Fitzgerald, senior vice president of marketing at Sermo, about the social networking platform, how it’s used to solve hard-to-cr...

Essential tremors, uncontrollable shaking of the hands, arms, and other parts of the body, have been traditionally treated through drugs or surgery. Cala Health is providing a new option to patients with its wristwatch-like neuromodulation device that uses electrical pulses to stimulate peripheral nerves to treat the condition. We spoke to Renee Ryan, CEO of Cala Health, about the company’s Cala T...

The ability to engineer biological systems to replace chemical processes is making the promise of the emerging bioeconomy a reality. Some of the leading industry players, though, see a growing need to have a voice in the policy arena and have formed the Bioeconomy Alliance to ensure the sector can flourish and realize its potential. We spoke to Jason Gammack, chief commercial officer of Inscripta...

Efforts to develop effective therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease have been stymied by a long history of clinical failures. Those disappointments have included two, late-stage failures of AC Immune’ Crenezumab, which the company is developing with it partner Roche. The two companies are continuing to pursue the drug under the belief that treating patients earlier in the progress of the disease w...

The study of microbes and their interactions is changing our understanding of biology, but only a small fraction of microbial species have been cultured. One of the challenges researchers have faced is the limits of existing tools used to study microbes. We spoke to Peter Christey, co-founder and CEO of GALT, about our emerging understanding of the microbiome, the need for a technological transfor...

Cofactor Genomics believes RNA provides a better means than DNA and other biomarkers to diagnose disease, monitor health, and enhance treatment decisions. The company’s Predictive Immune Modeling provides insight into a cancer patient’s immune response at the tumor to determine whether an individual is likely to response to an immunotherapy. We spoke to Jarret Glasscock, founder and CEO of Cofacto...

Scientists can understand individual tumors at a molecular basis, but clinician don’t yet routinely profile and treat cancers based on this knowledge. Strata Oncology, with drug developers as its customer, is providing tumor profiling to cancer patients in the hopes of directing them into appropriate clinical trials. We spoke to Dan Rhodes, co-founder and CEO of Strata, about the state of precisio...

Bellicum Pharmaceuticals is developing cellular immunotherapies that modulate T cell function through controllable molecular switches. The company is developing these immunotherapies to treat a range of cancers, as well as rare inherited blood disorders. The company believes the ability to modulate these cells once they are in the body will provide safer and more effective immunotherapies. We spok...

Senti Bio is using synthetic biology to build intelligence into cell and gene therapies, altering the way they act depending on the changing biological circumstances they may encounter in the body. Doing so may lead to safer and more effective therapies and address such things as the tumor microenvironment and mechanisms cancer have to grow, spread, and become resistant to treatments. Ahead of his...

Nurix Therapeutics is harnessing the body’s natural process for controlling protein levels to target and degrade proteins that drive cancer and other diseases. Its small molecule therapies control key enzymes responsible for protein breakdown and can be used to modulate the levels of proteins within cells. The company believes it can leverage the approach to treat a range of diseases. We spoke to...

The biopharmaceutical industry has been embracing artificial intelligence as a way to address complex issues of drug design and development, but Aktana is betting that such big data analysis can improve decision-making around sales and marketing too. Aktana’s AI technology integrates with a company’s customer relationship management system to synthesize data from a wide variety of sources and guid...

When David Fajgenbaum was in medical school, he became stricken with a rare autoimmune disease that nearly killed him. Though he recovered, he would suffer recurring, life-threatening flares only to discover the poor state of research into condition. Fajgenbaum chronicles his rare disease journey and his efforts to drive research and find treatments in his new book “Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Rac...

Among the many challenges to developing stem cell therapies is the need to match donors to recipients and the risk of graft vs. host disease that requires the use of immunosuppressants. Athersys has developed a stem cell therapy platform known as MultiStem that makes use of a type of stem cell that doesn’t carry the risk of causing an immune response. What’s more, cells from a single donor can be...

Immunotherapies have mostly sought to harness the adaptive immune system, but Silverback Therapeutics believes its technology platform will allow it to enlist the innate immune system in the fight against cancer, fibrosis, and infectious diseases. The company is developing antibody conjugates that activate myeloid cells to target tumors. It’s lead indication is in HER-2 positive tumors. We spoke t...