Fierce Biotech

Nektar Therapeutics created Inheris Biopharma, a new subsidiary helmed by Merck veteran Jay Galeota that will focus on developing and marketing drugs for central nervous system disorders.

In this week's EuroBiotech Report, Novartis bests GSK in asthma trial, Affimed scraps T-cell engager program and Amgen inks Nuevolution buyout.

Dutch researchers are using miniature livers, or “organoids,” the study the function of mutated genes in liver cancer. They've uncovered insight into the commonly mutated gene BAP1 that may explain how benign cells in the liver turn malignant.

In our EuroBiotech roundup this week, Boehringer backs startup, Zealand delays filing plan and Scancell eyes cancer trial start.

Fountain Healthcare Partners has raised €118 million for its third life sciences fund. The transatlantic VC shop, which backed Inflazome and Kandy Therapeutics with its second fund, will pump most of the money into European biopharma and medtech companies.

Tonix Pharmaceuticals is getting into the addiction business, licensing a phase 2 treatment for cocaine intoxication from Columbia University. The company is planning to start a pivotal trial for the enzyme, which breaks down cocaine, in 2020.

Affimed has terminated its phase 1 bispecific T-cell engager program seven months after the FDA hit it with a clinical hold. The action shifts Affimed’s focus to innate cell engagers that it plans to combine with other modalities to treat cancers.

Less than two months after stepping down as the FDA commissioner, Scott Gottlieb has slipped right back into his old ways, becoming "special partner" at his old life science venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates.

Locana, a biotech working on gene therapies that target RNA rather than DNA, raised $55 million to expand its platform and pipeline as well as to build out its leadership team. The company is taking aim at diseases caused by problems in RNA that stop cells from producing essential proteins.

Google’s artificial intelligence development has reached a milestone in lung cancer imaging and prediction, with a CT scan model being able to diagnose cases as well as or better than a group of six radiologists.

The popular adeno-associated virus is frequently used as a vector to deliver gene therapy, but most people are immune to the virus, rendering the therapy ineffective. To bypass that mechanism, scientists in Italy have improved lentiviral vectors for hemophilia gene therapies and shown improved efficacy in monkeys.

Chugai Pharmaceuticals is shelling out ¥127.3 billion on a new R&D site in Yokohama, where it will combine the work of two long-standing research labs in nearby cities. It will start building the new facility this August.

Using an innovative wearable, Spire Health has launched a study to develop new digital biomarkers that can predict exacerbations—and potentially hospitalizations—in patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Novartis’ triple combination asthma candidate QVM149 has beaten GlaxoSmithKline’s Advair in a phase 2 trial. The study linked QVM149 to statistically significant improvements in lung function, leading Novartis to talk up its potential to improve outcomes in uncontrolled asthma. 

Amgen has offered $167 million to buy Nuevolution. The takeover will give Amgen control of a drug discovery platform that landed Nuevolution deals with leading companies plus a pipeline of early-stage cancer and inflammation programs.

A week after launching with $150 million, ElevateBio is unveiling its first portfolio company: AlloVir, a biotech working on off-the-shelf cell therapies against several common viruses, including flu, respiratory syncytial virus and a type of herpes virus.

Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer and Sanofi have signed onto Verily’s Project Baseline, a program aimed at mapping out a baseline for human health.

Ocular Therapeutix’s drug-eluting insert to treat glaucoma—a small, resorbable hydrogel plug that sits within the tear duct designed to replace 90 days’ worth of daily eye drops—fell just short of meeting the primary endpoint of its first pivotal phase 3 trial.

K2 HealthVentures has secured $400 million to support public and private companies in life sciences and healthcare. The East Coast investor will primarily provide debt financing to enable companies to reach milestones with minimal equity dilution.

Merck has struck a deal to buy Peloton Therapeutics for $1.1 billion upfront days before the biotech was due to list on Nasdaq. The deal will give Merck control of an experimental oral HIF-2α inhibitor that could challenge Keytruda for the metastatic renal cell carcinoma market.