| | | |   | Hello, everyone. Damian here with news on some well-heeled Germans, a biotech merger that doesn't quite add up, and the promise of CAR-T's with an off switch. | | | How Bayer’s spending its biotech billions Over the last six years, a venture capital team within pharmaceutical giant Bayer has invested some $1.5 billion in startups the parent company might one day make partners or acquisitions. Now it’s planning to spend nearly the same amount in half the time on a new generation of biotech companies.
As STAT’s Allison DeAngelis reports, the in-house firm, called Leaps By Bayer, doesn’t operate like a traditional VC. There is no “return goal” when it comes to making money on investments, said Juergen Eckhardt, who leads Leaps. “It’s very clear: Objective No. 1, 2, and 3 is to provide strategic benefits to Bayer in the way of new technologies,” Eckhardt said.
That means scouting for companies with novel ideas in one of Bayer’s 10 delineated areas of interest. And while Leaps tends to buy bigger stakes in its portfolio companies than other VCs, the firm doesn’t attach Bayer-friendly strings that would “strangulate the development” of its targets.
Read more. | A merger worth less than the sum of its parts Sesen Bio, a biotech company whose lead drug came undone due to investigator misconduct and toxic side effects, has found new life as the target of a reverse merger. But Wall Street’s reaction to the deal suggests investors are less than enthusiastic about its potential.
The news is that Carisma Therapeutics, a private, early-stage company working on genetically engineered immune cells, is merging with Sesen in an all-stock transaction, effectively going public without an IPO. The major benefit to Carisma is Sesen’s $125 million in cash, and the company has signed a separate deal to raise another $30 million from outside investors. Once the transaction closes, the publicly traded Carisma will have about $180 million to advance its pipeline.
Sesen’s stock, soon to be Carisma’s, fell more than 30% to less than 50 cents a share, giving it a valuation that is about half of the two company’s combined cash. That could be because the terms of the merger, under which Sesen shareholders would retain a roughly 35% stake in the combined company, aren’t particularly kind to Carisma, suggesting the company couldn’t find better deal. | Are mRNA therapies the next step? Post-pandemic, it’s no secret that mRNA is a novel potentially therapeutic modality on the rise. As a global provider of technologies and services that advance and accelerate therapeutic development, Cytiva aims to be at the forefront of mRNA technology. In this series of articles, Cytiva scientists share their journey and insights on mRNA synthesis for research purposes. Explore the mRNA universe with Cytiva. | Are we sure there’s a Chinese market for mRNA vaccines? Moderna, which has lost 35% of its value since August amid declining expectations for Covid-19 booster revenue, is “eager” to do business with China, the company’s chief medical officer told Reuters yesterday, echoing comments from CEO Stéphane Bancel last week. But considering the struggles of Moderna’s primary Covid competitor, such an agreement seems less than likely.
BioNTech, maker of a rival Covid vaccine, has spent two years operating a joint venture with the Chinese drugmaker Fosun Pharma with the goal of marketing its product there. After multiple delays and at least one clinical trial, the two companies have yet to win Chinese approval for the vaccine, and it’s unclear whether they ever will.
Moderna, by contrast, has declined to say whether it has submitted its vaccine to Chinese regulators. “Currently, there is no activity going on,” CMO Paul Burton told Reuters, “but we’d be very open to it.” | ‘Switchable’ CAR-T promises safer cancer-killing CAR-T cancer therapies have led to dramatic benefits for patients with certain cancers, but the inflammatory storm they cause has made treatment a costly and sometimes risky proposition. Now, a new study of CAR-T’s that can be biologically switched on and off points to a safer way of eliminating tumors.
As STAT’s Jonathan Wosen reports, scientists at Scripps Research reported they could quickly and reliably turn CAR-T cells on and off after infusing them into patients with advanced blood cancers. In a clinical trial, seven of nine patients responded to therapy, with six showing no evidence of cancer. And for the patients who developed the serious inflammation that often comes with CAR-T therapy, researchers were able to quell the immune response within days by activating the off switch.
Scripps’ method relies on a tweak to the standard CAR-T process, in which patients’ immune cells are extracted, genetically engineered to home in on tumors, and then reinfused. The researchers designed their CAR-T’s to lay dormant until they encounter an antibody administered alongside the cancer treatment. To shut them off, scientists simply stop dosing the antibody.
Read more. | More reads - Catalent is scolded by FDA for quality control issues at a plant that helps make Covid-19 vaccines, STAT
- Novartis to take U.S. drug patent case to Supreme Court, Reuters
- Can blockchain solve health care’s security problems? The financial industry offers a valuable case study, STAT
- Biogen nets $592 million in Boston real estate sale as cost-cutting campaign rolls on, FierceBiotech
| Thanks for reading! Until tomorrow,  | | | |
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