If there had been any lingering market concerns following the temporary partial clinical hold earlier this year for Arcellx Inc.’s multiple myeloma CAR T-cell therapy, CART-ddBCMA, they were likely put to rest as partner Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Kite unit expanded the scope of the firms’ late 2022 collaboration to include lymphomas. At the same time, Kite exercised an option to negotiate a license for Arcellx’s ARC-Sparx program, ACLX-001, in multiple myeloma.
A year after Alkermes plc announced it would divide its oncology and neuroscience efforts into two separate businesses, the Dublin-based company spun out Mural Oncology plc with $275 million in funding and the lead solid tumor candidate nemvaleukin alfa. Shares of Mural (NASDAQ:MURA) will begin trading Nov. 16. “We’re very excited,” Mural’s CEO Caroline Loew told BioWorld. “We’ve got two major clinical datapoints in the next 18 months.”
Lunit Inc. is the latest South Korean firm to gain the U.S. FDA’s 510(k) clearance for Lunit Insight DBT, its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered breast cancer diagnostic tool that analyzes digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) images, boosting its efforts to enter the U.S. market. The company also reported that it secured $150 million in a public offering.
Researchers from Aligos Therapeutics Inc. have presented the discovery and preclinical evaluation of a novel next-generation liver targeted PD-L1 small molecule inhibitor, ALG-094103, which is being developed for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B and liver cancer.
Blueprint Medicines Corp. has identified KIT (c-KIT) (mutant) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST).
Kumquat Biosciences Inc. has synthesized son of sevenless homolog 1 (SOS1)/GTPase KRAS interaction inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of cancer.
Proxygen GmbH has disclosed molecular glue degraders comprising a cullin-ring E3 ligase (CRL) binding moiety acting as cyclin-dependent kinase 12 (CDK12)/cyclin K degradation inducers. They are reported to be useful for the treatment of metabolic diseases, cancer, infections and more.
Researchers from Nkgen Biotech Inc. have developed an anti-HER2 CAR NK cell therapy, named SNK-02, as a potential immunotherapeutic for HER2-overexpressing tumors. SNK-02 was tested in a xenografted murine model of cancer.
Researchers from Adicet Bio Inc. reported on the preclinical development of ADI-925, an engineered Chimeric Adapter (CAd) γδ1 T-cell therapy that targets major histocompatibility complex class I chain-related protein A/B (MICA/MICB) and ULBP1-6 expressed in tumor cells.