Data from two phase I studies from Prelude Therapeutics Inc. helped open the American Association for Cancer Research virtual International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics on Oct. 7 but tugged the company’s stock sharply downward.
Vigencell Inc., a company focused on immune cell therapy, raised ₩99.4 (US$85.17 million) through an IPO on South Korea’s Kosdaq board and plans to use the funds to drive its R&D and company operations. “We particularly want to increase the competitiveness of our pipeline by advancing our technology and clinical development,” Vigencell CEO Tai-Gyu Kim told BioWorld. “We will also expand our discovery of new candidates and R&D in general, as well as updating our facilities and hiring researchers.”
Pfizer Inc. has turned up the temperature in the already hot CD47 inhibitor space by offering $18.50 per share or $2.26 billion cash to acquire Trillium Therapeutics Inc., a biotech with two clinical-stage CD47 inhibitors.
Interius Biotherapeutics Inc., which just closed on an oversubscribed $76 million series A financing, is fixed on simplifying CAR T-cell creation by making the process less cumbersome, less expensive and time consuming, and all done in vivo.
Heidelberg, Germany-based Affimed NV described its progress at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting and discussed the research in a conference call on 2020 financial results, adding fuel to investor enthusiasm for the firm’s natural killer (NK) cell approach, although the update did not come without some confusion.
HONG KONG – Eisai Co. Ltd. has received not one, but two approvals from Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), for its anticancer agent Remitoro (denileukin diftitox) and multiple receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor Lenvima (lenvatinib mesylate). Both approvals, each for a rare disease indication, were granted based on phase II trial results, instead after the usual phase III trials.
Intec Pharma Ltd. is merging with privately held Decoy Biosystems Inc. and the combined company will continue advancing Decoy’s immunotherapy technology for treating a variety of tumors and chronic viral infections.
HONG KONG – The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is making headway with its 3D holotomography technology, which enables a more accurate and systematic way to view cell-to-cell interactions. This could be a game changer for assessing cell therapy.
Century Therapeutics Inc. raised $160 million in a series C round to progress its preclinical pipeline of allogeneic cell therapies for cancer, which are derived from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and to expand its operational, laboratory and production facilities across several locations.
Roivant Sciences Ltd. is buying Silicon Therapeutics LLC for $450 million in Roivant equity plus regulatory and commercial milestone payments. The combination of Silicon’s computational physics platform for in silico design or optimizing small-molecule drugs with Roivant’s newly unveiled protein degradation platform will be powered by Roivant’s machine learning models.
