The best news in biotech w/c June 17

Last week was another week packed full of reasons to be excited developments in the biotech space, with some HUGE news in obesity, immunology, HIV, vaccines and more. Enjoy another week of the best news in biotech… 

📈 Positive clinical readouts… 

• Altimmune, Inc. touted "best-in-class" weight loss while preserving lean mass data in a phase 2 obesity study Link
• Gilead Sciences ' twice yearly HIV prevention drug showed 100% efficacy in a phase 3 trial Link
• The FDA approved Merck 's Capvaxive as the world's first pneumococcal disease vaccine designed for adults Link
• Innovent Biologics ' bispecific immuno-oncology candidate IBI363 has been linked to a 100% response rate in a small cohort of Chinese lung cancer patients in a phase 1 trial Link
• Johnson & Johnson 's phase 2 Sjögren's data suggest that it is are on the right track by targeting FcRn antagonism at the automimmune disorder Link
• Roche 's Phase III STARGLO study demonstrates Columvi significantly extends survival in people with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma Link
• Taysha Gene Therapies published positive clinical data from a phase 1/2 Rett Syndrome gene therapy study Link
• AbbVie 's IL-23 inhibitor Skyrizi gains approval in its 4th disease, ulcerative colitis Link
• Also in IL-23, Johnson & Johnson 's guselkumab delivered positive results in a phase 3 subcutaneous injection trial for Crohn's disease Link
• Intra-Cellular Therapies ' antipsychotic Caplyta had another win with outstanding phase 3 results treating major depressive disorder Link
• Long term data for Vertex Pharmaceuticals & CRISPR Therapeutics CASGEVY™ demonstratef transformative, consistent and durable benefit Link 

🤝 Deals deals deals… 

• Roche partnered with Ascidian Therapeutics in a deal worth $42M upfront and up to $1.8B in milestone payments to develop exon editing drugs  Link
• Belharra Therapeutics announced a $40M upfront and up to $700M biobucks collaboration with Sanofi to identify and advance small molecules against Sanofi-designated immunology targets  Link
• Day One Biopharmaceuticals is paying Mabcare $55M upfront and up to $1.2B in biobucks for exclusive ex-China licensing rights to an ADC for solid tumors Link
• Melodia Therapeutics has signed a $275 million biobucks deal with Alivexis, Inc for development and commercialization rights to MDI-0151, a novel Cathepsin C inhibitor with best-in-class potential for various refractory inflammatory diseases Link 

 🚀 Private raises 

• J.P. Morgan Life Sciences Private Capital closed its inaugural biotech VC fund with over $500m to invest in private biotechnology companies across stage, modality, therapeutic area, and geography Link
• Marea Therapeutics , incubated by Third Rock Ventures launched with $190M and a clinical-stage pipeline of first in class cardiometabolic disease treatments Link
• Iambic Therapeutics raised a $50M series B extension to broaden its pipeline of AI-discovered clinical oncology programs Link
• Elion Therapeutics completed an $81M series B to advance its clinical stage anti-fungal pipeline Link
• InduPro raised an $85M series A to advance a cancer and autoimmune biologics pipeline to clinic Link
• iOnctura announced an $85M series B led by Syncona Limited to progress a number of early clinical first-in-class oral therapeutics against hard to treat cancers Link
• Syncona Limited lso launched Yellowstone Biosciences with £16.5M to develop soluable bispecific TCR-based therapies for cancer Link 

 🧬 Cool science of the week… 

In an industry first… Professor Daniel Siegwart and his team at UT Southwestern Medical Center , in a collaboration with ReCode Therapeutics , developed an LNP delivery technology that can effectively deliver to lung stem cells and yield durable gene editing responses. Intravenously administered gene-editing LNPs achieved >70% lung stem cell editing, sustaining expression in >80% of lung epithelial cells for 660 days in-vivo. Great paper Yehui S. , a potential game changer for CF and other genetic lung disease patients! Full paper 

That's all for this week. Subscribe for alerts to the latest positive news in the industry ⬇️🔔

About the author: Max Robinson is an ex-scientist turned talent leader in the biotechnology industry, and currently Global Head of Discovery & Preclinical Research at Proclinical.