| | | |   | Hello, all. Damian here. STAT is deploying three reporters to Chicago this weekend for ASCO, the year's biggest cancer research conference, and you can keep tabs on the meeting by signing up for their pop-up newsletter here. | | | Despite all the red tape, a biotech startup is considering an IPO Neumora Therapeutics, a fledgling neuroscience company that raised $500 million last year, is considering filing for an IPO this summer in what would be a sizable test of investors’ appetite for early-stage biotech companies.
As STAT’s Allison DeAngelis and Jason Mast report, Neumora is putting together a crossover round — the last private fundraising before an IPO — and could go public before the end of the year. The company, codenamed Really Big Neuroscience Company by its bankrollers at Arch Venture Partners, is a rollup of firms with projects in anxiety, autism, eating disorders, and neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease.
Meanwhile, the banner biotech index is down about 40% for the year, and the steady stream of IPOs that marked 2020 and 2021 has slowed to a trickle. If Neumora can successfully go public at a palatable valuation, it would bring a rare positive data point for an industry in deep decline.
Read more. | Is innovation actually bad for biotech? Will gene therapy ever live up to expectations? And can anyone break up the genomics monopoly?
We cover all that and more this week on “The Readout LOUD,” STAT’s biotech podcast. Health care strategist Jared Holz of Oppenheimer joins us to discuss the weekend’s big oncology conference and what it will take to change Wall Street’s dire view of the drug industry. We also discuss a weighty FDA meeting on gene therapy, the potential of a $100 genome, and how the expanding monkeypox outbreak is creating challenges for public health agencies.
Listen here. | Over a decade later, what’s next for the future of immunotherapy? Since 2011, the FDA has approved over three dozen novel immunotherapy treatments for patients with various forms of cancer. While these therapies have improved outcomes for some patients, there are others whose tumors don’t respond well enough to these medicines. Learn how the next generation and personalization of immunotherapies will help deliver more options for people with cancer | Regeneron is betting on Regeneron Back in 2018, when Regeneron won FDA approval for the cancer treatment Libtayo, this very newsletter wondered whether the world really needed a sixth checkpoint inhibitor. Four years later, Libtayo is a fast-growing product that brought in more than $300 million for Regeneron last year, and now the company is doubling down on its future.
Yesterday, Regeneron said it would pay $900 million to buy partner Sanofi’s stake in Libtayo’s proceeds, giving it sole rights to the treatment and leaving the French drugmaker with an 11% royalty stream. The deal marks “a major step towards Regeneron's goal of becoming a global oncology leader,” CEO Leonard Schleifer told Reuters.
The next step will be winning FDA approval for Libtayo in non-small cell lung cancer, the largest market for checkpoint inhibitors and one dominated by Merck’s Keytruda and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo. It remains to be seen whether Regeneron can compete with its entrenched rivals, but the company is betting on itself. | Speaking of well-funded rollups Centessa Pharmaceuticals, an amalgamation of 10 biotech companies that once claimed Moncef Slaoui as its lead scientist, has set aside its lead drug over safety concerns.
The company said yesterday that it would discontinue developing lixivaptan, a treatment for polycystic kidney disease, after noticing alarming elevations of liver enzymes in an open-label trial. It was a “data-driven decision,” Centessa CEO Saurabh Saha said in a statement, and one that will extend the company’s cash runway into 2026.
Centessa has lost about 85% of its value since going public about 12 months ago. The company’s grand unveiling came in early 2021, with Slaoui fresh from his successful turn as the scientific leader of Operation Warp Speed. About a month later, Centessa parted ways with Slaoui over allegations of sexual harassment at GSK, his prior employer. | More reads - Francis Collins: Concern about independence of new moonshot science agency ARPA-H are ‘overblown.’ STAT
- Pfizer, like Moderna, fires back at Alnylam suit over Covid-19 vaccine patents. Endpoints
- What the surprising mutations in the monkeypox virus could indicate about the new outbreak. STAT
| Thanks for reading! Until next week,  | | | |
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