Judo Bio Inc. emerged from stealth mode and rolled out data showing the value of using megalin receptors for intracellular delivery of ligand-small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapeutics to the kidney as a way of reducing expression of the targeted genes.
Biopharma financings continued to outperform over the first nine months of 2024, hitting $86.2 billion, a 75% increase from the $49.35 billion raised during the same period in 2023. September alone saw a significant boost from the prior month, with financings more than doubling to $8.7 billion from $3.5 billion in August.
Kurma Partners has announced the first closing of its Biofund IV at €140 million (US$154.5 million) and is pressing ahead to a final close of €250 million this time next year. The fund will make 16 to 20 investments, with half the money due to be invested in novel science that Kurma teases out of academic labs and the remainder in established VC-funded companies. The Paris-based firm is agnostic about which fields or disease areas it invests in and will prospect for breakthrough research anywhere in Europe.
Taiwan’s Caliway Biopharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. raised NT$6.4 billion (US$206 million) in its IPO on the Taipei Stock Exchange, making it the largest IPO in Taiwan’s biotech industry history and valuing the company at nearly $3 billion following the listing.
South San Francisco-based Septerna Inc. filed an S-1 with the U.S. SEC to conduct an IPO on Nasdaq about two years and eight months after launching operations with a $100 million series A led by Third Rock Ventures. The company is focused on G protein-coupled receptor oral small molecules derived from its Native Complex Platform, aimed at treating diseases within the endocrinology, immunology and inflammation, and metabolic diseases realms.
Dark genome miner Enara Bio Ltd. has closed a $32.5 million series B that will see the lead program targeting the first of a novel class of cancer antigens it has discovered through to the clinic. Enara calls these cancer antigens “dark antigens” (the name is trademarked). It says they can be found in solid tumors irrespective of the immune phenotype, and are often expressed at high prevalence across multiple different tumors.
Resolution Therapeutics Ltd. is preparing for a phase I/II trial of its autologous engineered macrophage cell therapy, RTX-001, in the treatment of end-stage liver disease and has raised £63.5 million (US$83.3 million) to complete the study and to add further fibrotic and inflammatory disease programs to its portfolio. Recruitment to the study, to be conducted at 15 sites in Spain and the U.K., is due to start before the end of 2024, with the monocyte-derived patient macrophages being processed and modified at a facility in Edinburgh.
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