U.S. PTO withdraws new patent thicket proposal

In May, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office had proposed a rule to crack down on patent thickets — but surprisingly, it has now withdrawn that proposal. The idea had been to curb attempts by biopharma companies to use collections of patents to gain monopolies by preventing generic competitors from entering the marketplace. But the PTO's proposal was immediately polarizing, and the decision to already withdraw it was thanks to "resource constraints" at the agency — no other explanations offered.

Some say the decision was made in light of the administration, STAT's Ed Silverman writes.

"On one hand, there was hard industry pushback against the rule," one pharma patent expert told him. "On the other hand, this was a well thought out rule that would have helped reduce patent thickets, likely lowering prescription drug costs."

EXCLUSIVE

Atlas Venture raises $450 million fund

Atlas Venture, one of biotech's largest VC firms, has raised $450 million for its 14th fund, STAT's Allison DeAngelis writes. It will focus on seed and Series A rounds, with a strategy of sourcing intellectual property and assembling leadership teams to complement it.

Atlas has shifted its focus in recent years to biotech exclusively, after initially funding both tech and life sciences. The new fund is the same size as its last one, an oversubscribed round in 2022.

china

AstraZeneca replaces benched exec in China

Amid a high-profile probe in China, AstraZeneca is replacing its top executive there. It just appointed company veteran Iskra Reic to be executive vice president, international — focusing on strategy and growth in China, Asia and Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Australia, and New Zealand.

"Iskra succeeds Leon Wang who is on extended leave from the company while under investigation in China," the company said in a statement.

Wang was detained by Chinese authorities two months ago — though the company has maintained it does not know why.

weight loss

Mouse study shows leptin may work coupled with GLP-1

Leptin, a hormone that regulates body fat, was once considered a promising target for obesity treatments. But long ago it failed due to "leptin resistance," whereby higher levels of the hormone desensitize the body to its effects. That said, a new study in Science Translational Medicine shows that targeting neurons with both leptin and GLP-1 receptors using a co-agonist molecule led to higher weight loss (in mice) than activating each receptor independently.

"Whether this is just a one-off piece of nice, basic mouse science and genetics in a very elegant study showing the importance of these neuron responses to this molecule," one diabetes researcher not involved with the study said, "or, all of a sudden, we will see this line of therapeutic reasoning being pursued, I don't know."