LONDON – Myricx Pharma Ltd. has launched with £4.5 million (US$5.9 million) seed funding to advance a new approach to targeting Myc, an oncogene that has defied long years of effort to drug it. The company will take a synthetic lethal approach, developing small-molecule inhibitors of N-myristoyltransferase to perturb pathways that Myc drives, causing cancer cell death.
The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer meeting, which concludes on Nov. 14, features a wide range of sessions that delve into the most recent advances in tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy, providing an excellent opportunity for investors and analysts alike to stay up to date on new therapeutics to improve cancer treatments. Overall, data presented at the meeting appears to have been well received, a factor that has helped push up the value of the price weighted BioWorld Cancer index this month.
Seed Therapeutics Inc. signed a massive deal with Eli Lilly and Co. on Nov. 12, a date that resonated deeply with Seed’s CEO, Lan Huang. Twenty-one years earlier to the day she published a pioneering paper on cancer signaling pathways involving p53 degradation in Science. “It’s a magical coincidence that exactly 21 years later we have this deal with Lilly,” she told BioWorld, a deal with protein degradation at its core. In the new research collaboration and license agreement, Seed will receive $10 million cash up front to fund research along with a $10 million equity investment from Lilly.
3D Medicines Inc. has licensed in from Aravive Inc. a phase Ib-completed GAS6/AXL inhibitor known as AVB-500 in a deal worth up to $219 million. The Chinese firm will have the rights to develop and commercialize the drug candidate across all oncology indications in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
HONG KONG – Kira Pharmaceuticals is riding high after completing a $46 million fundraiser and appointing Frederick Beddingfield as CEO. “The $46 million comprises a series A of $18 million and a series B of $26 million, with investors Quan Capital, 6 Dimensions Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, and Sinopharm Capital participating in both rounds,” Beddingfield told BioWorld.
Shares of Five Prime Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:FPRX) shot 237% higher to $18 Nov. 11 on new top-line results for its targeted antibody, bemarituzumab, in gastric cancer.
New and updated preclinical and clinical data presented by biopharma firms at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer’s annual meeting Nov. 9-14, including: Bergenbio, Exuma, Genexine, I-Mab, Imcheck, Innovent, Intensity, Jounce, Nektar, Shattuck, Sotio.
DUBLIN – Catalym GmbH pressed the accelerator on its growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF-15) inhibitor program by raising €50 million (US$59 million) in series B financing, which will fund a first-in-human study lined up to start before year-end.
DUBLIN – Affimed NV has found another taker for its tetravalent bispecific antibody-based innate cell engager (ICE) platform. Roivant Sciences GmbH is putting down $40 million in cash, plus another $20 million of its own stock, as part of a multiprogram alliance involving AFM-32 plus additional molecules directed at targets not currently addressed by Affimed’s pipeline. Some $2 billion in development, regulatory and commercial milestones are also attached to the deal.
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