Newco Brink Therapeutics SAS is poised to work on the next chapter in genome editing after raising €3.5 million (US$4 million) in seed funding to discover and develop programmable recombinase enzymes.

Cartesian Therapeutics Inc. followed up December’s phase IIb data with more good news regarding Descartes-08, offering 12-month efficacy and safety results that whetted Wall Street’s appetite for the phase III Aurora effort ahead. Milos Miljkovic, chief medical officer, told BioWorld that minimum symptom expression – among the areas where Descartes-08 shone, providing relief for “months and months after the last dose of treatment” – is especially important to patients.

“The nation’s scientific enterprise is being decimated.” That statement in an open letter “to the American people” signed by 1,800 members of the U.S. National Academies, is made concrete in a list of 709 NIH grants – and counting – that have been axed since President Donald Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20.