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Today's Rundown

Featured Story

Eli Lilly's Alzheimer's moment has arrived after Biogen plows through the FDA gates

Eli Lilly's neuroscience team has moved quickly since Aduhelm's June approval to get their own therapy, donanemab, to an accelerated approval filing with the FDA by the end of the year. And the Big Pharma is hoping to beat their competitor to the punch with proof their drug actually slows progression of the disease.

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Top Stories

Goodbye PAM: Merck KGaA sells clinical-phase cancer prospect to French startup

Merck KGaA has found a home for its PAM inhibitor M2698. Three years after wrapping up a phase 1 clinical trial, Merck has offloaded the candidate to a French biotech that plans to start phase 2 solid tumor and lymphoma studies in the second half of next year. 

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Moderna donates ultra-rare disease therapy to nonprofit founded by late Takeda R&D chief

Moderna is donating an ultra-rare disease mRNA therapeutic to the Institute for Life Changing Medicines, the nonprofit founded by the late Tachi Yamada, M.D., to find therapies for devastating genetic diseases.

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Takeda's norovirus vaccine spinout, HilleVax, secures $135M crossover

HilleVax secured a $135 million crossover investment two months after being spun out of Takeda to focus on developing the Big Pharma's norovirus vaccine candidate, which had been little talked about for the past few years.

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Kyowa Kirin to pay AM-Pharma up to $289M in licensing deal for Pfizer-rejected sepsis asset

Pfizer didn't want to fully buy out AM-Pharma after the Dutch biotech failed to meet the primary endpoint in a phase 2 study of patients with sepsis-associated acute kidney injury in 2018. But Kyowa Kirin sees the light at the end of the tunnel and is willing to dish out up to $289 million for the rights to the drug hopeful in Japan.

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Exscientia, Gates Foundation put up $35M each to prepare antivirals for next global pandemic threat

With the COVID-19 pandemic showing no signs of ending anytime soon and a White House ready to funnel billions into preparing for future infectious disease outbreaks, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is investing $35 million in Exscientia for just that. 

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Catabasis Pharmaceuticals no more: Meet Astria Therapeutics, hoping to be a phoenix from the flames

Catabasis Pharmaceuticals has culled staffers, axed pipeline meds and endured some major trial flops. Now, it’s looking to hit the reset button with a new name and focus.

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Insilico puts undruggable cancer targets in its crosshairs with Huadong alliance

Another month, another Insilico Medicine partnership. After disclosing a series of collaborations over the summer, Insilico has now taken the lid off a new partnership with Huadong Medicine focused on undruggable cancer targets. 

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Replicate Bioscience looks to replicate RNA's pandemic response success with $40M to go after cancers, immune disorders

Replicate Bioscience emerged from stealth with $40 million to bring four programs into the clinic. The biotech is using self-replicating RNA technology to go after cancer and immune disorders and plans to enter the clinic in the second half of 2022.

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EnteroBiotix secures $21.5M series A to advance microbiome drug pipeline

EnteroBiotix has rounded up $21.5 million in a series A financing to advance a pipeline of drugs targeting the microbiome, which is believed to play a role in overall health.

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On a dealmaking roll, Sanofi lays out $1.9B for Kadmon and its newly launched transplant drug

Sanofi has yet to wrap up its $3.2 billion acquisition of mRNA specialist Translate Bio, but the French pharma is already reaching out to its wallet. This time, it's making a play in general medicines.

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Medrio and PHASTAR team up on clinical trial data visualization

Decentralized clinical trials company Medrio partnered with biometrics clinical research organization PHASTAR to use electronic patient-reported outcomes data to provide insight on patient compliance and burden.

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Health tech funding snapshot—Oprah backs Maven Clinic; Whoop scores $200M to build out fitness tracking tech

Equum Medical pulled in $20 million to build out acute care telehealth, Oprah Winfrey backs Maven Clinic's $110 million round, a startup that developed a voice vital sign to quantify depression banked $26 million and other funding news in August.

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Resources

Whitepaper: Evaluating current manufacturing platforms for recombinant AAV production

Choose the right AAV platform for your viral vector-based therapy

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Today’s economics do not allow manufactures to keep making decisions in an antiquated way. They need to challenge tradition & deliver faster, cheaper, successful launches. Learn how.

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Thermo Fisher Scientific introduces a new NK cell culture medium designed to support feeder-free, high-yield growth for cell therapy applications.

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Webinar: Let A Digital Sherpa Uncomplicate The Path for Patients

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eBook: Get solutions to market faster

Read Get to Know Cloud Content Management for Life Sciences and learn how to eliminate silos across all workflows, from R&D to commercialization.

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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