Claire Brown

WuXi AppTec will sell its Advanced Therapies unit to a US private equity for an undisclosed amount after months of concern. https://lnkd.in/e3yXZs5d

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Crosswalk Therapeutics is pleased to share our plans to develop a novel, next-generation enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) for Fabry disease. Our discussions with physicians and patients at this year’s WORLDSymposium, MPS Society UK, here for those with rare diseases Fabry Matters conference, and the 8th Update on Fabry Disease event from @Kidneys for Life have further illuminated for us the unmet need in the patient community and the transformative potential of our investigational technology to improve the lives of people living with Fabry disease. Natalia Boukharov, our Head of Nonclinical Research, and John Chapin, our Head of Clinical Research, presented a poster at the 8th Update on Fabry Disease Conference in Hamburg, Germany. The aim of the poster presentation, “An analysis of clinical endpoints and industry-sponsored drug development in Fabry disease,” was to foster a conversation on the challenges of designing Fabry clinical trials. Crosswalk received invaluable feedback and insights from experts. It established new connections that will help facilitate the development of our novel investigational ERT to address the current unmet needs of Fabry patients. "Patients with Fabry disease have had marked improvement in the quality of their lives with the availability of enzyme replacement therapies and more recently chaperone therapy. It is very exciting for these patients, and their treaters, to see the second generation of therapies being developed. The current unmet clinical needs of these patients include the development of anti-drug antibodies, and tissue distribution and efficacy, especially for the cardiomyocytes. The present development efforts are directly targeting these issues and may well usher in an exciting new chapter in the treatment of Fabry disease."- David Warnock, MD, Professor of Medicine (Emeritus), University of Alabama at Birmingham. We are so excited to continue our momentum. Everyone at Crosswalk remains dedicated to the Fabry patient community (patients, caregivers, and loved ones) and we will continue to work tirelessly to develop technology and therapies intended to offer new hope and new options. Learn more about the exciting work we’re doing: https://lnkd.in/eXw_HBAK #raredisease #drugdevelopment #startup #lifesciences #biotech #healthinnovation #fabrydisease #healthcare #pharmaceuticals #healthtechnology #ERT #enzymereplacementtherapy

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It’s been a great 2024 for Cancer Research Horizons, with plenty of activity to post about on Linkedin over the course of year. Particular stand outs include; the first patient dosing of several novel portfolio drugs in pancreatic, oesophageal, breast, blood and solid tumour studies; our portfolio companies raising over $300m of new capital to invest in areas such as ADCs, TME & molecular glues; seed financing newcos in areas including brain cancer, RNA, virtual reality and chemotherapy induced sepsis; and launching our new £28m global C:further initiative with LifeArc to discover new drugs addressing childhood cancers. Exciting stuff but still plenty more on the horizon for next year. Have a lovely festive break all. #OnMyHorizon #ChildhoodCancer #CancerResearch

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Cancer Research Horizons recently featured Ishani Malhotra from Carcinotech Ltd in its latest blog She discussed what it is like to go from working in a #biotech company to launching your own! Find out more via https://lnkd.in/eJZfSZ_N #OnMyHorizon #WomeninSTEM #SpinOut #FounderStories

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Editor Rebekah Jordan spoke to Kevin Kreutter, Ph.D., senior vice president, Drug Discovery, Empress Therapeutics about how the company is using AI to analyse genetic data, to accelerate and refine small molecule drug discovery. "Empress adds a new, orthogonal source of data from the trillions of microbial cells that reside within and are an evolutionarily conserved part of the human body. To give you a sense of scale, our metagenome, comprising the combined genomes of all microorganisms found inside and on the human body, encodes over 170 million proteins." Read more >> https://lnkd.in/erzdU-5B #AI #GeneticEngineering #DrugDevelopment #SmallMolecule

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We are proud to introduce Dr Demi Wiskerke, PhD, Associate Consultant at Scendea and the author of our latest whitepaper, "Regulatory Pathways for Advanced Therapies: Meetings and Designations Overview". - The whitepaper explores how early regulatory interactions and key designations, such as Platform Technology and AMT, can accelerate the development of advanced therapies. Read and download the full whitepaper here: https://lnkd.in/gcy7JvCN - #whitepaper #regulatoryaffairs #drugdevelopment #advancedtherapies

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We're thrilled to announce that Yellowstone Biosciences, a new oncology spin-out from the University of Oxford, has chosen ARC Oxford as their headquarters, taking over 8,000 SQF of fully fitted CL2 lab and office space. Yellowstone launched with £16.5 million in Series A funding to pioneer soluble bispecific TCR-based therapies for cancer. Led by the renowned Professor Paresh Vyas, Yellowstone will focus on developing innovative treatments for acute myeloid leukaemia and other cancers. Yellowstone joins a thriving life sciences community at ARC Oxford, alongside notable organisations such as Oxford Biomedica, MiroBio Ltd, and OMass Therapeutics. With esteemed neighbors like Ivy Farm Technologies, Perspectum Ltd, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and more. David Williams, Senior Director of Leasing at ARC, expressed excitement about welcoming Yellowstone: “We’re delighted to welcome Yellowstone Biosciences to our thriving life sciences cluster at our ARC Oxford Campus. Given the rapid pace of growth of research-intensive businesses in Oxford and spinouts from Oxford’s universities, it’s crucial that we deliver a consistent, diverse and flexible supply of laboratory and technical space, to support both established companies and those in their infancy. Yellowstone’s move to ARC Oxford into a fully fitted lab and office space at Series A is a remarkable achievement and is testament to our commitment of ensuring Oxford remains a thriving hub of innovation." ARC Oxford offers incredible lab-ready facilities, including buildings 9400 and 5510 (to name only a few) providing cutting-edge environments in the Oxford knowledge quarter for science and technology organisations of all sizes, from spin out's to established businesses, to scale and thrive. Read the full press release here: https://lnkd.in/da85vppp #LifeSciences #CancerResearch #Innovation #Oxford #Biotechnology #Healthcare #Labspace Paresh Vyas Dan Williams David Williams Will Crane

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Kairos Biotech Ltd are pleased to announce they have received follow-on funding of €1m from Dutch entity EchiumBio Holding BV.   Kairos Biotech management comprises CEO & founder, Dr Mike Bunce, R&D director Ben Passey, Senior Scientist Hayley Hogan and Investor Director Dr Wietse Mulder.   The transaction was executed with legal support from Herke van Hulst and Angela Saldanha at Osborne & Clarke in Amsterdam and Catherine Williams from Keystone Law in London.    The follow-on investment came after the company achieved significant milestones in developing its novel molecules for transplant diagnostics and applications in targeted immunotherapy.   Our approach in transplantation   Successful kidney and other solid organ transplants need to avoid immunological rejection to succeed. Unfortunately, many patients have pre-formed anti-donor T and B cells that restrict the opportunities for transplant. Some patients may wait years for a transplant opportunity due to deleterious anti-donor immunological responses.    Kairos Biotech aims to improve transplant success by developing small molecules that are suitable for both improving diagnostics, and molecularly enhanced to modulate or remove immunological anti-donor responses. We will demonstrate that these ‘designer immunosuppressive molecules’ can interfere and remove the anti-donor responses in a highly-specific and possibly permanent way. This transplant tolerance is expected to be highly beneficial for the transplant of highly sensitized patients. This will enable shorter waiting times for transplant, and potentially improved transplant survival.

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Prescient Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:PTX, OTC:PSTTF) CEO and managing director Steven Yatomi-Clarke sits down with Jonathan Jackson in the Proactive studio ahead of a presentation of the results of its PTX-100 Phase 1b study at the 15th Annual T-Cell Lymphoma Forum (TCLF) in California from June 6 to 8. The Phase 1b study targeted patients with relapsed and refractory T-cell #lymphomas (r/r TCLs) and successfully met its primary objectives of demonstrating safety and determining pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Additionally, the study showed a promising preliminary efficacy with a 45% overall response rate, where five out of 11 evaluable patients responded positively to the treatment. Watch at #Proactive #ProactiveInvestors #Biotech #Biopharmaceutcials #Oncology #TCellLymphoma https://lnkd.in/epVKef5J

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The Oxford Drug Design team had a fantastic day at the Life Science Nation (LSN) RESI Europe 2024 Conference in Barcelona yesterday. 🔬 Our CEO, Dr Alan D. Roth was invited to present our pioneering AI drug discovery platform, SynthAI, as part of the Innovators Pitch Challenge. SynthAI employs a proprietary generative approach, utilising deep reinforcement learning integrated with our proprietary databases to generate only molecules with the desired activity that can be made, and made economically. This in turn leads to a streamlined therapeutic discovery process impacting patient lives faster. It was a pleasure connecting with investors in the sector, including Invivo Partners and Korion Life Sciences. 🚀 We’re actively seeking Series A investment to drive our next phase of growth. Our platform has already delivered in vivo proof of concept for a first-in-class approach against cancer, and we have ambitious plans for the efficient discovery of new drugs that this investment will support. For more on our company or investment opportunities visit 👉 https://lnkd.in/dEptKXh #cancerresearch #angelinvesting #drugdiscovery #investment #venturecapital

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We have a 99.6% failure rate in drug development for neurodegenerative disease. The current model is broken and needs changing. The FDA Modernisation Act 2.0 provides alternatives to existing clinical models to be used as supporting evidence. An iPSC platform if stratified across age, disease mutation, sex and ethnicity would be deployed before in-vivo animal and human testing and would be sized as required to provide statistical credible data for efficacy and approval. the building and validation of this model could achieve the following: 1. Size the addressable opportunity for the treatment ie. What disease mutations will have a positive response given model is stratified for sporadic Alzheimer’s disease. 2. Screen both current and historic compounds, small molecules, therapies etc at scale and in a high throughput environment. AND HERE IS THE REAL KICKER 3. You could power up the number of iPSC patient lines to reduce the number of patients needed to be recruited into a clinical trial BENEFITS Save time, save money, understand sooner patient and public health impact and IMPORTANTLY, improve patient outcomes. Let’s beat the 99.6%! #ipscs #neuroscience #alzheimersresearch #alzheimersdisease #neurodegenerativedisease #research #biopharma #biotech #pharma #drugdiscovery #drugdevelopment #dementia

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In a recent podcast, Allucent experts Sugato De, MS (VP, Regulatory Strategy, Head of MedTech) and Alex MacDonald, PhD (VP, Model Informed Drug Development) explored the exciting world of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) and radionuclide drug conjugates (RDCs), discussing the tremendous growth potential of these targeted oncology therapies, the challenges faced by small and mid-sized biotech companies, and strategies for navigating the complex regulatory landscape. This podcast was hosted by BioPharma Dive and can be accessed here: https://lnkd.in/g8uSZp7X.   #Allucent #BringNewTherapiesToLife #DrugDiscovery #AntibodyDrugConjugates #Radionuclides #Oncology

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Interesting article by Cartherics’ COO, Dr Ian Nisbet published in pharmaphorum discussing the evolution of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and what they can teach us about advancing cancer treatments. The article offers insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for ADCs and cell therapies, shedding light on lessons that may shape the cell therapy space. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gMFKyz_3

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📢 Calling companies and potential partners working in #oncology! Are you attending #BioTrinity 2024 in the City of London this week? A team from our Business and Innovation Office will be there to speak to possible partners, collaborators and funders about opportunities to work with us across a broad portfolio of our cancer research. As one of the top-rated UK academic organisations in industry collaboration, we currently work with around 100 commercial partners to develop our discoveries into new cancer treatments. Highlights in the past year include the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of breast cancer drug capivasertib (now branded Truqap), which was discovered by AstraZeneca following a long-running collaborative research programme also including Astex Pharmaceuticals. 🤝 Come and meet our team at BioTrinity (Ceri Mathews, Joo-Hee Sir, Jennifer Hodgson and Jonathan Beech) to discuss partnering with us, or joining our network of VCs and potential investors. If you are already registered to attend BioTrinity 2024, you can set up a meeting via the link 👇 https://lnkd.in/eD8baaQZ #CancerResearch #Commercialisation #TechTransfer #LifeSciences #BioTech #Pharmaceutical #TechnologyTransfer #University #Academia #Industry #StartUp #Technology #Innovation #BioTechnology #Pharma #Biology #Medicine #Health #PharmaIndustry #IndustryCollaboration

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In response to Sarah Neville's article in the Financial Times recently, highlighting the imbalance in clinical trials, Shortwave Life Sciences CEO Rivki Stern Youdkevich comments on the bias that exists and how we are addressing: "There is an obvious need for more inclusive recruitment strategies in clinical research to ensure that findings are applicable to all affected populations.  Ironically, in eating disorders, males tend to be under-represented in clinical trials, despite their growing presence within the patient populations. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, In the United States, men represent up to 25% of people with eating disorders, including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Despite this significant proportion, men are still less likely to be diagnosed and treated compared to women due to stereotypes and a lack of awareness among healthcare providers about the signs and symptoms in this population. This underrepresentation in diagnosis and treatment is reflected in clinical trials as well. Unfortunately, the bias that exists in the categorization of eating disorders as a "female" condition, can hinder the development of effective, gender-inclusive treatments and interventions. At Shortwave Life Sciences we are attuned to these discrepancies as we progress down our clinical path." https://lnkd.in/ehcun-qg

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Great news to round out 2024 here at the ICR! 🎄 ✨ 🎇     We're delighted to share that the new ICR spinout company Sentinal4D has been announced to the public.    Sentinal4D aims to accelerate drug discovery and development to target drugs to patients, powered via patented artificial intelligence-driven methods for personalised therapeutics.    The company is built on years of data and expertise developed in the lab of ICR's Professor Chris Bakal, a leading expert in cell shape in cancer, and includes former ICR PhD Student Matt De Vries. It is led by Dr Georgia Mitsi.    Professor Bakal said: “Sentinal4D brings together several strands of expertise we’ve been building in the lab for a number of years – including a deepening understanding of the role of cellular shape-shifting in cancer, innovative new methods of drug discovery, and AI-driven analysis of data including image data"    Sentinal4D is the second spinout company to be announced by the ICR this year - as we continue to support our entrepreneurial scientists.    Dr Jon Wilkinson, Director of Business and Innovation at the ICR said:  “Sentinal4D is the latest of several new spinout companies to emerge from our work at the ICR, as we continue to encourage scientists to found companies as part of the mix of what they do.” Read more here ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/eg5VNrRV

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A sobering assessment of London’s AIM market from my BioCentury Inc. colleague Stephen Hansen, following the recent de-listings of three U.K. biotechs. 💬 “Anybody who lists on AIM should not be surprised that there’s low liquidity and they can’t raise secondary financing.” - Tim Haines of Abingworth 💬 ✅ Full analysis: https://lnkd.in/d5VNEEKG #biotech #capitalmarkets

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How do growth factors produce cell division? Growth factors promote cell proliferation by initiating a chain of events when they bind to their receptors, which ripple through the cell. Our latest blog article explains these events. https://lnkd.in/eSS-qsjS

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