The Bio Report

As people age, their bodies lose the ability to regenerate as well as they were able to when they were younger. Alkahest believes this is tied to changes in the mix of proteins that are present in the blood as we age. It is developing therapies for diseases of aging that seek to target specific proteins that are upregulated in diseases of aging, as well as providing a wide set of proteins drawn fr...

There was a time when scientists could spend their careers talking only to other scientists about their work, but that’s changed. Whether it’s the current funding climate, the need to understand complex scientific issues underlying public policy debates, or opportunities to fund translational work and commercialize important discoveries, scientists are increasingly being tasked with addressing lay...

Kleo Pharmaceuticals is a developing next-generation immuno-oncology drugs that are small-molecule compounds designed to act like biologics. Kleo’s compounds activate patients’ immune systems to target and destroy cancer cells but are faster and less costly to design and produce than biologics. We spoke to Doug Manion, CEO of Kleo, about the company’s platform technology, why he thinks it will pro...

Josiah Zayner calls himself a biohacker. He’s got a Ph. D. in molecular biophysics from the University of Chicago and worked as a fellow in NASAs synthetic biology program. But it is Zayner’s evangelism for democratizing the tools of biotechnology, his flair for attention-grabbing self-experimentation, and efforts to share the knowledge and equipment necessary to perform procedures like gene editi...

One-third of adults suffer from high blood pressure and 9.4 million people a year will die from complications relating to the condition. In fact, cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Quantum Genomics is developing a new class of drugs that target an enzyme in the brain for the treatment of high blood pressure and the prevention of related cardio-vascular risks. We s...

Atrial fibrillation, a condition characterized by an irregular and rapid heartbeat, affects up to 6.1 million Americans and can cause strokes. It is not well addressed by current medical approaches. Chris Larson, an adjunct associate professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute is part of a team working to find new drugs to treat the condition by identifying every gene in the hu...

Current therapies for autoimmune diseases represent a $100 billion market, but available drugs often provide limited benefits to patients or cause problematic side effects. Landos Biopharma is targeting the area of autoimmune diseases with an initial focus on inflammatory bowel disease by pursuing therapies that target a novel pathway. We spoke to Landos founder and CEO Josep Bassaganya-Riera, abo...

The ability to print human tissue is changing the way drug research is conducted today and opens the possibility of one-day printing replacement organs with the technology. CellInk saw an opportunity in making bioinks and started to produce a line of lower-priced printers as well in the hopes of expanding the marketing by lowering the cost of the technology. We spoke to Erik Gatenholm, CEO and co-...

Bing Wang trained as an electrical engineer, but his experience as a cancer survivor led him into the world of healthcare investment banking and then to his current role as CEO of the cancer therapeutics company Refuge Biotechnologies. Refuge is leveraging CRISPR technology, but rather than editing genes, the company is using it as a way to activate or inhibit specific genes by harnessing it for i...

As the year draws to a close, we continue what’s become an annual tradition and look back on the year in biotech and ahead to the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference and beyond with Adam Feuerstein, senior biotech writer for STAT News. Adam tries to make sense of a puzzling year for biotech that seemed full of contradictions, offers some thoughts on the highs and lows of the past 12 months, and disc...

The ability to manipulate and understand biology at the molecular level coupled with powerful computing capabilities is opening up new possibilities to harness technology to improve human health. The OS Fund is focused on investing in entrepreneurs developing platform technologies that have the ability to address global problems. We spoke to Bryan Johnson, co-founder of the OS Fund, about his inve...

Paul Keckley is a long-time healthcare policy analyst whose both worked within hospital systems and advised major healthcare organizations, but when he recently collapsed on a golf course due to severe dehydration, he was given an up-close and personal view of the murky world of hospital billing. We spoke to Keckley about his experience, the challenges of deciphering hospital bills, and why he thi...

Matt State is known for his work trying to understand the biology underlying psychiatric illnesses, but as the chairman of the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Psychiatry, part of his job has been to help address the city’s homelessness crisis. Homelessness is a complex issue, but the role mental health plays in the problem is often overlooked. With about 10,000 people who a...

Gecko Biomedical’s first product Setalum is a sealant that prevents bleeding after the use of sutures to repair blood vessels, but the polymers underlying the product represent a platform technology that can be used to develop a broad array of tissue reconstruction offerings addressing bone, nerve, ophthalmic, and urological applications. We spoke to Christophe Bancel, CEO of Gecko, about the comp...

In 1988, researchers showed that they could extend the lifespan of worms by manipulating the genetics of these model organisms. The implications that the normal aging process could be altered ignited scientific research into the emerging area of geroscience. As the Buck Institute for Research on Aging readies to mark the anniversary of this landmark research with a day-long celebration, we spoke t...

People with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder who use stimulants to treat the condition often face afternoon crashes and require the use of booster doses. Cingulate Therapeutics is using its proprietary drug delivery technology to target this $14 billion market with timed released formulations of commonly used ADHD drugs it is developing. We spoke to Shane Schaffer, CEO of Cingulate, about...

Problems of women’s reproductive health represent a growing worldwide concern, but it remains an area of unmet medical needs. ObsEva is advancing a late-stage clinical pipeline with development programs focused on treating endometriosis, uterine fibroids, preterm labor and improving IVF outcomes. We spoke to Ernest Loumaye, CEO of ObsEva, about the issue of women’s reproductive health, the company...

CytoDyn’s lead candidate for HIV is part of a new class of therapies that work by protecting healthy cells by blocking viral infection. But the receptor that the drug targets also plays a role in cancer metastasis and may provide a new approach to treating a wide range of cancers. We spoke to Richard Pestell, chief medical officer of CytoDyn, about the drug, how it works, and why it may have value...

The rise of the Internet, social media, and communications technology has transformed consumer behavior. Consumers today are better informed, expect a high-level of engagement, and a modern service experience. Shay Brill, vice president of corporate development for Atlantic Research Group, in a white paper released at the recent Global Genes Rare Patient Advocacy Summit, argues that similar change...

DxTerity is a genomics company that’s providing real-world monitoring of patients with autoimmune disease with from-home RNA testing to improving the management of these conditions. The company’s technology not only has the potential to change the way diseases such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis are managed, but change the way clinical trials in these conditions are conduct...

The availability of a growing body of real-world evidence has regulators considering how clinical trials using disparate sources of data might work. Many see harnessing such information as a way to provide better insight into the safety and efficacy of drugs while reducing the cost of clinical trials. A number of issues, though, will need to be addresses as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ta...

Immunotherapies are changing the way physicians treat various cancers, enabling and enlisting a patient’s immune system in the fight against a deadly disease. But this approach has largely been limited to the field of oncology. Cidara Therapeutics, which is developing new anti-infectives, is using its Cloudbreak platform to develop antibody-drug conjugates that directly kill pathogens and also dir...

Nucleoside analogs are a widely used class of chemotherapeutic agents, but the ability of cancer cells to evade them and develop resistance limits their benefits and increases their side effects. NuCana, which is developing a new class of cancer agents dubbed ProTides believes it can address this problem with nucleoside analogs by delivering them efficiently into cancer cell and preventing their d...

Synlogic is using synthetic biology to engineer probiotic bacteria to deliver therapeutic benefit. By targeting the microbiome of the gut, the company believes it can produce systemic effects to treat metabolic and other diseases with its new class of therapies it dubs Synthetic Biotics. We spoke to Aoife Brennan, interim CEO and chief medical officer of Synlogic, about the company’s platform tech...

One way to improve drug discovery and development is to work with more accurate models of human biology and human disease. Organ-on-a-chip technology that provides three-dimensional cell models in conventional microfluidic plates is helping to do that. Mimetas is one company that’s delivering this technology to the hands of researchers today. We spoke to Jos Joore, co-founder and CEO of Mimetas ab...