8
Dec
2020
VC Roundup: Microglia Targeting, RNA Processing, and Radiopharmaceutical Startups Raise Cash
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3
Dec
2020
AZ’s Muddy Result, Regeneron Cocktail OK’d, and Biogen, Sage Bet Big on Depression
Take two weeks between Frontpoints columns, and a lot of stuff happens. On Monday Nov. 23, AstraZeneca presented a muddy picture from its Phase III clinical trial with a COVID-19 vaccine developed on adenovirus technology with Oxford University. It’s either delivering 90 percent efficacy or 62 percent efficacy, depending on the dose. So it’s either great or good, but we’re... Read More
2
Dec
2020
Genesis Therapeutics, AI Drug Discovery Startup, Captures $52M Series A
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30
Nov
2020
5AM, Atlas Join $40M Bet on Kinaset, a Pan-JAK Inhibitor for Severe Asthma
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23
Nov
2020
Medicines Based on Unusual Genetic Traits: Andrew Farnum on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Andrew Farnum. Andrew is the CEO of Seattle-based Variant Bio. Variant Bio is a startup seeking to discover new drugs, by finding gene variants in rare ethnic groups. It’s especially interested in what can be learned by sequencing exceptional groups of people in countries where there hasn’t been much sequencing. This is a... Read More
20
Nov
2020
Moderna, Pfizer Nail COVID-19 Vaccines. Now Comes the Hard Part
It wasn’t the dominant headline it should have been, and few are in the mood to celebrate with the pandemic out of control, but this was a week to celebrate a monumental scientific victory that provides hope for 2021. Moderna dazzled everyone on Monday by reporting its mRNA vaccine candidate for COVID-19, developed in partnership with the National Institute for... Read More
12
Nov
2020
Pfizer, BioNTech’s Watershed Moment, Lilly Antibody Gets EUA, & The Rebuilding Begins
First thing Monday, we all woke up to the brightest ray of light in this dark year. Pfizer and Germany-based BioNTech reported that their vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19. The report was via press release, not peer-reviewed journal, but this was still a moment to celebrate. The interim analysis wasn’t based... Read More
11
Nov
2020
Creating the Future of Microbiome-Based Therapies: Simba Gill on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Simba Gill. Simba is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Evelo Biosciences. Evelo is part of a new generation of biotech companies seeking to make medicines based on new understanding of the microbiome. The science here is fascinating. Evelo’s drug candidates are biologics designed to be taken orally, to act directly in the gut,... Read More
5
Nov
2020
Reflections from a Wisconsin Boy
My first real journalism job flashed to mind this week. It was 1998-1999. I was a kid reporter fresh out of the University of Wisconsin. My job was to cover Dane County government for The Capital Times, the progressive newspaper in Madison. Dane County had about 400,000 people. Half lived in the beating liberal heart of the City of Madison... Read More
29
Oct
2020
J&J, AZ Back in the Saddle, Regeneron Moves the Ball Downfield, and a Flurry of Deals
America, my old conservative friend from a Mountain West state told me on the phone in April, can’t handle the pandemic. We’re soft, he said. Like the characters in the 2008 Pixar film “Wall-E,” he said, we’re sucking on our Slurpees and so drunk on cheap 24/7 entertainment that we can’t even stand on our own two feet anymore. ... Read More
28
Oct
2020
The Battle for the Soul of Biopharma: Peter Kolchinsky on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Peter Kolchinsky. Peter is the managing partner at RA Capital Management. The Boston-based firm invests in public and private life sciences companies with a total of $6.8 billion under management. Peter is a virologist by training at Harvard University. It’s obviously a valuable set of skills to have in a year like this.... Read More
26
Oct
2020
Machine Learning for Drug Discovery: Daphne Koller on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Daphne Koller. Daphne is the CEO of South San Francisco-based insitro. The company is seeking to develop a new platform for drug discovery that leans on a combination of wet labs and machine learning algorithms to spot new biological targets for drug discovery. Artificial intelligence and machine learning have been stirring imaginations in... Read More
22
Oct
2020
Remdesivir’s FDA Approval, Moderna Fully Enrolls & FDA Wrestles With Trust
Catch up on the main events of the week in biotech with Frontpoints. The FDA issued a surprising approval – not another watered-down Emergency Use Authorization – to Gilead Sciences for remdesivir (Veklury) its antiviral against COVID-19. The antiviral, designed to stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus from copying itself, is now the first treatment fully approved by the FDA against this... Read More
15
Oct
2020
J&J Vaccine Study Paused, Lilly Antibody Paused, and Regeneron’s Ebola FDA Approval
It’s hard to tell yet whether the J&J vaccine and Eli Lilly antibody trials are suffering from momentary blips, or something more serious on the safety front. The AstraZeneca vaccine trial has been stuck on pause in the US since September, which seems like a rather lengthy delay in pandemic terms. Let’s hope they all get back in the saddle... Read More
14
Oct
2020
RayzeBio Snags $45M to Reimagine Targeted Radiotherapies for Cancer
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12
Oct
2020
Looking at Cancer From a Different Angle: Pearl Huang on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Pearl Huang. Pearl is the CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Cygnal Therapeutics. Cygnal is a startup dedicated to developing cancer drugs based on some fairly new understanding of the Peripheral Nervous System. For years, scientists assumed that the PNS was merely a conduit of the central nervous system. But what if the PNS is... Read More
8
Oct
2020
A Historic Nobel for CRISPR, Pfizer Sticks Up for FDA, & a CDC Legend Speaks
What a time to be alive in biomedicine. Catch up on the main events in Frontpoints. The Babe Ruth of Public Health Speaks Out William Foege is in his mid-80s. There’s a genome sciences building at the University of Washington named after him because Bill Gates gave money to build it, and he wanted it named after a scientific hero.... Read More
1
Oct
2020
FDA Commissioners Speak Out, An Antibiotic Incentive Proposal and a Drug Price Grilling
Rummaging around in the garage can be about more than just tossing out junk. Going through old files lately, I found a printout from the Carnegie-Knight Task Force in 1997. That was the year I graduated from college and went to work as a local newspaper reporter. The task force, convened by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, was wrestling... Read More
28
Sep
2020
Small Molecules Against RNA Targets: Jennifer Petter on The Long Run
Today’s guest on The Long Run is Jennifer Petter. She is the founder and chief scientific officer of Waltham, Massachusetts-based Arrakis Therapeutics. Jennifer is a medicinal chemist who has spent her career thinking about how to make small molecules with all the classic Lipinski “Rule of 5” characteristics against protein targets. Five years ago, when she was looking for a... Read More
24
Sep
2020
Illumina’s Bet on Early Cancer Detection & ESMO Highlights
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