Jaimy Lee

Plus, Ole­ma and No­var­tis up­date an agree­ment for a breast can­cer tri­al, and Roche shares long-term da­ta for Vabysmo in mac­u­lar ede­ma. CEPI puts $25M in­to vac­cine for Rift Val­ley fever: The Coali­tion for Epi­dem­ic Pre­pared­ness In­no­va­tion is giv­ing $25.9 mil­lion to Wa­genin­gen Biovet­eri­nary Re­search to ad­vance a live-at­ten­u­at­ed vac­cine for Rift Val­ley fever in­to a Phase I/IIa tri­al. CEPI said Tues­day that heavy rain and flood­ing are linked to out­breaks of the…

Plus, Tes­sel­late BIO, led by for­mer Big Phar­ma ex­ecs, comes out of stealth. Lu­men Bio­science gets $16M to ad­vance C. diff ther­a­py: The De­part­ment of De­fense award­ed $16.2 mil­lion to the Seat­tle-based com­pa­ny, which is de­vel­op­ing an oral drug to treat and pre­vent in­fec­tions with C. dif­fi­cile. It plans to start en­rolling 375 pa­tients in a late-stage tri­al for LMN-201 by the end of the year. Flash­point’s $10M: Flash­point Ther­a­peu­tics on Tues­day an­nounced a $10 mi…

From Chris Viehbach­er’s van­tage point, Bio­gen was nev­er re­al­ly a neu­ro­science com­pa­ny. Bio­gen has launched a sig­nif­i­cant re­vamp un­der Viehbach­er, in­clud­ing the re­cent hire of Jane Gro­gan, an im­mu­nol­o­gist, as its new head of re­search. And on Thurs­day, the CEO point­ed to the com­pa­ny’s his­to­ry in mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis as an in­di­ca­tor that the com­pa­ny has long been fo­cused on im­munol­o­gy. “I don’t think we’re go­ing to get in­to” rheuma­toid arthri­tis, Viehb…

Plus, news from Vi­core, El­e­vate Bio, Monte Rosa Ther­a­peu­tics and An­gi­tia: In­tas, Hen­lius ink an­oth­er deal: In­tas said Fri­day it plans to pay €42 mil­lion up­front to li­cense Shang­hai Hen­lius Biotech’s an­ti-PD-1 mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body in Eu­rope and In­dia for spe­cif­ic in­di­ca­tions. The terms al­so in­clude up to €43 mil­lion in reg­u­la­to­ry mile­stones and up to €100 mil­lion in sales mile­stones, plus roy­al­ties. The com­pa­nies ex­pect ser­plulimab to gain ap­proval…

Plus, news from CEPI and Pro­JenX: Pro­tag­o­nist Ther­a­peu­tics records a $50M mile­stone: The com­pa­ny said Wednes­day that it’s get­ting a $50 mil­lion mile­stone from its agree­ment with John­son & John­son. The mile­stone was trig­gered by the third pa­tient be­ing dosed in a Phase III tri­al eval­u­at­ing a pso­ri­a­sis treat­ment. Pro­tag­o­nist said it ex­pects to launch ad­di­tion­al Phase III stud­ies for the oral pep­tide next year.

Chiesi, Hais­co to de­vel­op res­pi­ra­to­ry treat­ment out­side of Chi­na: The com­pa­nies said Mon­day that they plan to work to­geth­er to de­vel­op, man­u­fac­ture and po­ten­tial­ly com­mer­cial­ize a re­versible dipep­tidyl pep­ti­dase 1 in­hibitor out­side of Chi­na, Hong Kong, Macau and Tai­wan. Fi­nan­cial terms of the deal were not dis­closed. Hais­co is cur­rent­ly test­ing the ther­a­py in Phase II stud­ies in Chi­na for bronchiec­ta­sis, a con­di­tion that caus­es a buildup of mu­cu…

Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing eyes $3B fund: The Mod­er­na cre­ator and in­cu­ba­tor of more than 100 star­tups seeks to raise its eighth fund, per a Wednes­day SEC fil­ing. The move comes as the Boston firm ex­pands to the UK and Asia-Pa­cif­ic. Its last fund was a $3.4 bil­lion haul in June 2021. — Kyle LaHu­cik Phe­nom­ic AI an­nounces sec­ond phar­ma deal: The biotech said Thurs­day that it’s work­ing with Astel­las Phar­ma to fig­ure out whether Phe­nom­ic’s an­ti­bod­ies can en­hance cell ther­a…

Pfizer CEO Bourla outlines company's path forward with new R&D focus, board changes & strategy after meeting Trump, while addressing activist investor Starboard Value

Plus, news about Vigonvita Life Sciences and Lutris Pharma: For MASH developers, a race for cash: Akero Therapeutics aims to raise $300 million in an offering ...

Gilead is the latest drugmaker to announce that it’s pouring billions of dollars into its manufacturing and R&D operations in the US.