Fierce Biotech

New research from Eisai showed measurable correlations between amyloid biomarkers in the bloodstream and changes in the cerebrospinal fluid, bringing the company a step closer to developing a quick and simple blood test for Alzheimer’s disease.

Nearly five years after lung-scarring med Ofev got the FDA nod, its maker wants to get cracking on a successor. Boehringer Ingelheim is licensing an autotaxin inhibitor from Bridge Biotherapeutics for €45 million ($50 million) upfront.

In this week's EuroBiotech Report, Gilead and Galapagos ink big deal, Novartis chalks up Alzheimer’s failure and AM-Pharma raises €116 million.

In our EuroBiotech roundup this week, Oryzon posts phase 2 Alzheimer’s data, Mereo eyes fast approval and AC Immune advances Lilly-partnered drug.

Kronos Bio has raised $105 million. The series A sets the Norbert Bischofberger-helmed biotech up to advance efforts to hit historically undruggable targets. 

PPD is working with Cancer Treatment Centers of America to speed up enrollment into cancer studies.

Gilead Chief Scientific Officer and R&D chief John McHutchison, M.D., is leaving one year after he took over from the company's longtime R&D lead Norbert Bischofberger, Ph.D.

Elon Musk pulled back the curtain on his brain interface-developing Neuralink in a technology showcase aimed more at recruiting new employees to the secretive company than attesting to its science.

Frequency Therapeutics is licensing its lead hearing loss program to Astellas, which will develop and market the drug outside the U.S., for $80 million upfront. It stands to receive another $545 million in milestones and royalties down the line.

A few months after AstraZeneca’s MedImmune unit walked away from some of its R&D work with the biotech, Inovio Pharmaceuticals is cutting 28% of its workforce and swinging the ax on a bladder cancer test.

The FDA went against the recommendations of advisory committees 22% of the time between 2008 and 2015, according to a study. 

Immusoft has named Robert Hayes as chief scientific officer. Hayes, the former head of biologics at Amgen, joins the cell therapy startup as it works to move a treatment for mucopolysaccharidosis type I into clinical testing. 

Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have created a gene therapy technique that they say might work not just in an inherited form of heart arrhythmia, but also in more common cardiac diseases marked by an irregular heartbeat.

Orum Therapeutics raised $30 million to expand the applications for for its cell-penetrating antibody technology aimed at drugging "undruggable" targets.

Could wearable biosensors change the face of clinical trials and shorten a drug’s regulatory journey? That’s what Yale University and the Mayo Clinic are trying to find out, using biosensors and Biofourmis’ mobile health platform.

GNS Healthcare has raised $23 million from the venture capital arms of drugmakers and health insurance companies to build out its artificial-intelligence-driven precision medicine platform.

Life sciences incubator Paragon Biosciences has built a new portfolio company around its acquisition of the first FDA-cleared artificial intelligence system for diagnosing breast cancer.

Genentech started Tuesday with a $1 billion biobucks deal with Sosei Heptares and followed it with two more: one focused on cancer and neurodegenerative diseases with Skyhawk Therapeutics and one on neurological disorders with Convelo Therapeutics.

A collaboration involving the FDA is set to evaluate new endpoints for heart failure clinical trials. The partners will use wearable devices to assess how heart failure patients function and feel after being discharged from hospitals.

After spinning out two companies at the start of the year, Sosei Heptares has now inked a new deal with Roche biologics unit Genentech.