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Today's Rundown

Featured Story

CureVac's first-gen COVID-19 vaccine misses the mark with 47% efficacy, as share price halves in after-hours trading

German biopharmaceutical CureVac said its first-generation COVID-19 vaccine, CVnCoV, showed less than 50% efficacy against any severity of the disease.

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Top Stories

Biogen's $300M bet on Alzheimer's tau drug snapped up from Bristol Myers flames out in phase 2

A phase 2 trial of Biogen’s anti-tau antibody gosuranemab in Alzheimer’s disease patients has missed its primary endpoint, prompting the biotech to terminate the study and stop clinical development of the candidate. Biogen paid $300 million upfront to license the drug from Bristol Myers Squibb.

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Diversity initiatives pick up across biotech industry, but women, people of color still lack representation

The good news is that the biotech industry is trying to improve diversity and inclusion. The bad news is that the measures do not yet seem to have moved the needle on getting women into the C-suite and people of color into any level at companies. Seven in 10 biotechs now list diversity and inclusion in their value statements or as a priority, according to a new report from BIO.

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Sponsored: Inside Track: Behind the Scenes of a Major Biotech SPAC

Take a closer look at the SPAC phenomenon with Dr. David Hung, Founder and CEO of Nuvation Bio and Michelle Doig, Omega Funds Partner and President of its Omega Alpha SPAC.

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Apollo Therapeutics to go 'full throttle' with $145M raise after 5 years under the radar

The brainchild of three top U.K. universities and three pharma giants, Apollo Therapeutics made a splash when it debuted in early 2016. Then, crickets. In the five years since, the company has been building a portfolio of more than 15 programs and now will advance those toward the clinic with $145 million in new funding.

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Lilly helps Circle round up $66M for intractable target R&D

Circle Pharma has raised $66 million to take cyclin-targeted programs toward clinical development. The Eli Lilly-backed series C round sets Circle up to build on its years of research into cell-permeable macrocyclic peptide therapeutics with the potential to hit previously undruggable targets.

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After Repare IPO success, Amplitude goes all in on Canadian life sciences sector with CA$200M fund

Amplitude Venture Capital constructed a solid track record over the past year and a half, helping lay the groundwork for Repare Therapeutics to go public, and now the Canadian investment firm is doubling down. Amplitude closed its oversubscribed $200 million Canadian dollars ($163 million) precision medicine fund Thursday to continue investing in the Canadian life sciences sector, a space that made a big splash last year with three of the largest biotech IPOs in the country’s history.

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LENZ Therapeutics gets fresh set of eyes with $47M funding to bring eyedrop to market

LENZ Therapeutics re-emerged Thursday after saying goodbye to the name Presbyopia Therapies. The company also announced a new CEO and a fresh start with $47 million in funding to bring its aceclidine eye drop for improving near vision to market with an FDA submission.

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Supreme Court preserves ACA in 7-2 ruling that latest challenge doesn't have standing

The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to uphold the ACA after striking down a challenge from a collection of red states that argued the individual mandate was unconstitutional and the rest of the law should be struck down with it.

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While mRNA saved the COVID-19 day, GSK and Sanofi vaccines likely safe beyond pandemic: analysts

Although the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have shown "astonishing" efficacy against COVID-19, the novel technology is "not a panacea" for other diseases, Jefferies analysts said in a note. That's good news for other vaccine developers, namely Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, they argue.

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Warp Speed initiative sent COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials into hyperdrive, new research shows

When the U.S. formed Operation Warp Speed toward the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic last spring, drug developers, clinical research organizations and other players felt the weight behind the initiative’s urgent name. The pandemic forced CROs like IQVIA to rethink and boost resources, because the “clear traditional timelines would not be sufficient” to get COVID-19 vaccines to the public quickly, the company said in a new report.

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Targeting 'enabler cells' to stop the spread of triple-negative breast cancer

Triple-negative breast cancer is aggressive and linked to worse prognoses than other types of the disease. Now, a research team led by scientists at Georgetown University Medical Center has identified a small subset of early breast cancer cells that drives the invasive spread to other parts of the body.

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Mayo Clinic, nference AI analysis finds no real-world link among COVID-19 vaccines and brain blood clots

The study’s results were published not long after the FDA paused and unpaused the use of J&J's vaccine, amid reports of at least eight cases of rare brain blood clots, including one woman who died from the condition.

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Targeting treatment-resistant BRCA-mutated tumors via the newly discovered POLQ pathway

PARP inhibitors have been game-changing for some patients whose tumors have mutations in the BRCA gene, but those cancers invariably become resistant to the drugs. Now two separate research teams are exploiting a new drug target to treat patients with drug-resistant, BRCA-mutated cancers.

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Resources

Whitepaper: How the rapid shift to point-of-care is reshaping diagnostics

Learn how the diagnostics industry is being fundamentally transformed with point-of-care molecular testing.

Whitepaper: How to Launch a Successful BYOD Strategy in Any Phase

For faster deployment, improved patient engagement, and better-quality data — go where your patients are. GO BYOD with Lunexis™ from Clinical Ink.

Paid Marketplace: Story of Success: Ashfield Healthcare Empowers Field Sales to Grow Market Share based on Data

Discover how Ashfield Healthcare uses the power of data and analytics to enable pre-call planning, inform sales rep actions and drive higher market share for its target pharmaceutical products.

eBook: Improving Diversity and Inclusion in Clinical Trials

Create a more diverse and inclusive clinical trial enrollment and engagement environment by learning the barriers to participation and the strategies to overcome them.

Whitepaper: Closed Cell Processing System Benefits for Cell & Gene Therapy

Autologous cell and gene therapy workflows involve isolating cells from an individual, engineering the cells, expanding and concentrating them, and infusing them back into the patient. Optimized automation of certain steps of the workflow may decrease hands-on time and the cost of the cell manufacturing process.

Guide: Your Guide to Overcome Inconsistent Clinical Data Standards

Learn how to develop a standards program that has your full team’s buy-in and improves the efficiency and quality of your clinical trials.

eBook: The New Standard: Virtual Study Training in Clinical Trials

The new standards in study training help sponsors and CROs reduce costs by 60%, cut training time by 50%, and start enrollment 55 days faster – learn more today.

Report: New research indicates an accelerated shift to decentralized clinical trials

New research indicates an accelerated adoption of decentralized clinical trials due to COVID-19.

Content Hub: Process Intensification Resource Center

A one-stop hub for Cytiva resources to support process intesification

Content Hub: Emerging Biotech Resource Center

A one-stop hub for Cytiva resources to support process development and manufacturing of your novel molecule

Content Hub: Remarque Systems Resource Hub

Remarque Systems consolidates data, then layers on visualization and automated metrics to generate consistent, actionable data insights in real-time. Click here for more info. 

eBrief: Drug Product Process Development: Ensuring a Consistent, High-quality Biologic

Learn about drug product process development challenges and risks, the difference between innovator and biosimilar drug product process development, and more during the drug product process development phase.

Whitepaper: Achieving a Successful Drug Product Technology Transfer

Get insights on key considerations for a successful tech transfer process for manufacturing a biologic drug product, including a case study on overcoming challenges in a process transfer for a sterile diluent.

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