BEIJING – Tokyo-based biotech firm Heartseed Inc., which focuses on regenerative medicine, has closed a series B financing round to pocket $26 million that will go to its lead drug candidate, HS-001, for treating heart failure.
Startup firm Dyno Therapeutics Inc. is attempting to engineer a new generation of adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids by navigating its way across what it calls the “capsid fitness landscape,” in order to optimize the key parameters that affect capsid performance: production, delivery efficiency, biodistribution, immunogenicity and thermostability.
HONG KONG – South Korea’s Avixgen Inc., which recently secured ₩10.6 billion (US$9 million) in pre-IPO investment and has raised total funding of ₩27 billion since its series A in 2015, plans to use funds to further develop drug platform technologies and therapeutics for virus-causing diseases such as HIV-1/AIDS, using inhibitors based on small molecules and cancer drugs based on peptides.
The research challenge facing the scientific founders of newly launched Immunitas Therapeutics Inc. was getting human samples to deeply analyze in their quest to understand autoimmunity. While the research continued slowly, the science raced ahead.
HONG KONG – South Korean pharmaceutical giant Yuhan Corp. has invested ₩3 billion (US$2.6 million) in SL Bigen Co. Ltd., a Korean biotech based in Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do, that is focused on chimeric antigen receptor-directed natural killer (CAR-NK) therapy.
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica – Hemoalgae, from Cartago, Costa Rica, is moving forward with the extraction and development of molecules of hirudin, a peptide with anticoagulant properties, which impacts the biotech and med-tech sectors.
PERTH, Australia – Melbourne-based Cartherics Pty Ltd. plans on taking its pluripotent stem cell technology into the clinic next year. It is employing advanced gene editing techniques for the next generation of CAR T therapy.
DUBLIN – Hamlet Pharma AB is about to embark on the next phase in the clinical development of its novel cancer therapy, a constituent of human breast milk that has a selective effect on disrupting the membranes of cancer cells.
With a $17 million series A fundraiser completed, Pinteon Therapeutics Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., is keeping its eyes on the phase I trial it started in September testing PNT-001, a tau antibody that targets cis-pT231 tau, a toxic epitope that drives neurodegenerative disease.
MELBOURNE, Australia – Brisbane-based Kira Biotech Pty Ltd. is poised to enter the clinic after raising AU$20 million (US$13.72 million) in series A funding to develop therapies targeting immune system disorders.
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