Focused on oral therapies for obesity, diabetes and rare diseases, Boston-based Syntis Bio Inc., which raised $15.5 million through seed funding last year, emerged from stealth to advance its synthetic tissue-lining technology and a pipeline of candidates.

Focused on oral therapies for obesity, diabetes and rare diseases, Boston-based Syntis Bio Inc., which raised $15.5 million through seed funding last year, emerged from stealth to advance its synthetic tissue-lining technology and a pipeline of candidates.

Two years after signing a $1.6 billion partnership with Marengo Therapeutics Inc., Paris-based Ipsen SA is back at it again, this time teaming up for two additional assets that target “cold” tumors in a deal that could bring privately held Marengo $1.2 billion. “We do something really novel and innovative and I think it’s very important to continue to validate it,” Marengo CEO Zhen Su told BioWorld, adding that with the newest deal, “we see validation all around this … It’s a success on success.”

Washington-based Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. has faced a challenging few years involving a federal lawsuit against the U.S. FDA, patent infringement litigation, increasing generic competition and dwindling sales, as well as a complete response letter nixing plans to expand its melatonin receptor agonist Hetlioz (tasimelteon) into insomnia, yet it has recently received a higher, unsolicited acquisition offer of $466 million from a second company, Cycle Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Annexon Inc.’s stock (NASDAQ:ANNX) climbed 31% June 4 following news that a single infusion of C1q protein complex inhibitor ANX-005 at the 30-mg/kg dose delivered a statistically significant 2.4-fold improvement in Guillain-Barré syndrome patients. Shares closed at $5.99, up $1.41.

Moderna Inc. gained U.S. FDA approval on May 31, nearly three weeks past its original PDUFA date, for its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine Mresvia (mRNA-1345), which had both breakthrough therapy and fast track designations in the U.S.

Gaining full rights to a bispecific antibody to treat atopic dermatitis, Johnson & Johnson is paying $1.25 billion to acquire Yellow Jersey Therapeutics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Numab Therapeutics AG. The subsidiary houses all assets related to NM-26, which targets IL-4Ra (type I and II receptors) and IL-31, and was designed with Numab’s MATCH (Multispecific Antibody-based Therapeutics by Cognate Heterodimerization) technology platform. It is ready for phase II development for atopic dermatitis, although J&J intends to develop, manufacture and commercialize the drug globally for follow-on indications as well.

Three years ago when Keting Chu pondered the name for a new biopharma company that would fold in infectious disease assets from Novartis AG, she looked out over her West Coast backyard. “I was looking for a name that made you think of California,” she told BioWorld. She nixed the idea of incorporating redwood trees into the name, but then she saw the blue jays flying around those trees and thought, “that’s a beautiful bird.” Hence, Chu founded and became CEO of Bluejay Therapeutics Inc., first raising $20 million through a series A in June 2021 and a $41 million series B in August 2022. On May 9, the San Mateo, Calif.-based company closed a $182 million series C round, with plans to accelerate development of lead compound BJT-778 to treat chronic hepatitis D virus, a condition for which there are no approved therapeutics in the U.S.

Despite what University of Pennsylvania (Penn) immunotherapy pioneer Carl June referred to as a “cold slap last November” – a launched investigation by the U.S. FDA into a possible link between CAR T-cell immunotherapies and secondary cancers – new unpublished studies by Penn and Stanford University highlight the rarity of such cases.