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Startup Gets Drugmakers to Pool Data to Clear Early-Stage Hurdles
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By Brian Gormley, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Sharing data isn’t something drugmakers typically want to do. At least on one front, startup Inductive Bio has gotten them to change their mind.
Inductive, which recently gathered $25 million in a Series A financing led by Obvious Ventures, has built a consortium of customer companies that contribute data to a repository. Why? To use Inductive’s AI to break through an obstacle that frustrates drug developers.
For a medicine to get to market, it has to balance parameters known as “Admet,” or absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity. Getting it right across all these metrics can take years, said Josh Haimson, co-founder and chief executive of New York-based Inductive.
Haimson believed AI could accelerate this process, and first sought high-quality data in the public domain. Not finding enough, he built the consortium of more than a dozen drugmakers that agreed to contribute to the dataset.
The data the pharmaceuticals contribute are “pre-competitive,” meaning they don’t contain companies’ secretive information, such as what gives their compounds a unique edge, Haimson said.
Inductive’s technology allows chemists to design drugs computationally as they get AI feedback. Inductive also forms collaborations in which it uses its in-house chemists, platform and generative AI to suggest molecules to drug developers, Haimson said.
The model is give-to-get: Companies must join the collective and contribute data to be Inductive customers, Haimson said. The company intends to expand its consortium with this venture financing.
“Our goal is accelerating the discovery of small-molecule therapies across the industry as a whole,” he added.
And now on to the news...
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Dr. Hernan Bazan, left, chief executive of South Rampart Pharma, with Josh Blacher, chief financial officer. PHOTO: SOUTH RAMPART PHARMA
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Capital efficiency. South Rampart Pharma has readied a painkiller for midstage clinical trials with a minuscule amount of funding for a striving biotech firm. And one way the company keeps costs low is by not having salaried employees.
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Formed in 2016, New Orleans-based South Rampart has never paid salaries, says Co-founder and Chief Executive Dr. Hernan Bazan, who like his four employees, works part-time. His employees are paid cash on an hourly basis for the time they spend at South Rampart. To get this far, the company had scraped together just under $9 million in grants, equity and tax credits.
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South Rampart has maintained drug-development timelines consistent with industry standards, Bazan said, adding that he works mornings, evenings and weekends at the company. He estimates South Rampart would have needed to raise 30% more than it has if it had full-time salaried employees.
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The company is now adding to its initial funding, closing on a significant portion of a Series A financing expected to total $8 million from investors including Ochsner Ventures, which invests on behalf of Ochsner Health and is leading the round. Gulf South Angels is also participating and Bazan said he expects additional investors to round out the financing.
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$1.2 Billion
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The amount drugmaker GSK agreed to pay upfront to acquire a liver-disease treatment from Boston Pharmaceuticals. GSK also could pay $800 million in success-based payments.
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GSK Buys Liver-Disease Treatment From Boston Pharmaceuticals
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GSK will acquire a liver-disease treatment from Boston Pharmaceuticals for up to $2 billion as it seeks to boost its pipeline of new drugs, The Wall Street Journal reports. The British pharma giant said Wednesday that it will pay the U.S. biotech company $1.2 billion upfront, with a further $800 million in potential success-based milestone payments. The drug is currently in late-stage trials, with a potential market launch in 2029. It aims to treat a form of liver disease characterized by inflammation and damage caused by a build-up of fat. GSK said the drug is also being explored for use in alcohol-related liver disease, and that mid-stage data has shown
potential to reverse liver fibrosis and halt disease progression. Unlike current daily tablet treatments, efimosfermin is designed to be administered as a monthly shot. GSK plans to develop it both as a monotherapy—which uses one type of treatment—and in combination with its own experimental liver-disease therapies.
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People
Ted Myles was appointed chief executive officer of drug discovery startup Cellarity and CEO-partner at Flagship Pioneering. He was most recently chief financial officer and chief operating officer of Scholar Rock.
EDGe Surgical, a developer of single-use digital instruments for orthopedic and spine procedures, named Leo Carayannopoulos to the post of CEO.
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Azafaros, a developer of therapeutics for patients with rare lysosomal storage disorders, secured €132 million in Series B financing co-led by Jeito Capital and Forbion Capital Partners’ growth strategy. The company is based in the Netherlands.
Sirius Therapeutics, a San Diego-based startup developing siRNA therapeutics for patients with chronic diseases, completed a nearly $50 million Series B2 round from investors including OrbiMed.
Somite AI, a Boston-based startup leveraging foundation models and proprietary AI to accelerate human cell therapy development, landed more than $47 million in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures.
Nuevocor, a startup developing therapies for patients with genetic cardiomyopathy, raised $45 million in Series B funding. Angelini Ventures was among the investors, with Managing Director Elia Stupka joining the company’s board. Nuevocor has offices in Singapore and Fort Washington, Pa.
Stylus Medicine, a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup developing in vivo genetic medicines, emerged from stealth with $85 million in financing, including a $45 million Series A extension investment from Khosla Ventures and others.
Therini Bio, a Sacramento, Calif.-based startup developing immunotherapies for neurodegenerative diseases driven by vascular dysfunction, scored $39 million in Series A extension financing from investors including Angelini Ventures.
SpotitEarly, a Tel Aviv-based cancer screening startup using artificial intelligence and canines to analyze breath samples, launched in the U.S. market with $20.3 million in funding from Hanaco Ventures and others.
Complement 1, a cancer-care startup, was seeded with a $16 million investment led by Owl Ventures and Blume Ventures.
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Kari Vandenberg-Bastian at home in Camas, Wash. PHOTO: WILL MATSUDA FOR WSJ
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An L.A. doctor’s house burned. Now he treats the fires’ effects in neighbors. (New York Times)
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Mental healthcare may be harder to obtain after HHS rule reversal (STAT)
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Is space-based biomanufacturing real? (Life Sci VC)
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After promising universal healthcare, California governor must reconsider immigrant coverage (KFF Health News)
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As rates of some cancers increase in younger people, researchers search for answers (National Cancer Institute)
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