The Making of "Super-Platforms" in Bio (Part 1)
ALSO: Weekly News; Sam Altman-backed Startup Partners with Microsoft to Enable the AI Infrastructure for Drug Discovery
Hi! I am Andrii Buvailo, and this is my weekly newsletter, ‘Where Tech Meets Bio,’ where I talk about technologies, breakthroughs, and great companies moving the biopharma industry forward.
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Now, let’s get to this week’s topics!
Weekly Tech+Bio News:
The last week was very busy with announcements, in particular, from Ginkgo Bioworks (which, in my opinion, broke a record for a per-single-day announcement density).
💼 Bristol Myers Squibb completes a $4.1bn acquisition of RayzeBio, expanding its portfolio with a new radiopharmaceutical pipeline, including a leading therapy, RYZ101, aimed at treating neuroendocrine tumors and lung cancer.
💰 Novo Nordisk enters a $1.46bn agreement with Neomorph to develop molecular glue degraders for cardiometabolic disorders and rare diseases, marking a significant investment in targeting previously 'undruggable' diseases with advanced therapeutics.
🔬 FB1006, an AI-discovered drug, enters clinical trials for ALS treatment, showing potential in addressing the progressive degeneration of nerve cells.
Developed by 4B Technologies and Insilico Medicine, this innovative approach integrates AI at multiple stages, including target identification and efficacy assessment, aiming to expedite drug development and offer new hope to ALS patients.
💰 ORI Capital secures $260M for its second life sciences fund, ORI Fund II, targeting early-stage biotech innovations in diagnostics, drug delivery, and therapeutics for high-mortality diseases. With a focus on AI and big data through its ORIZON platform, ORI aims to support the next generation of biotech companies addressing significant unmet medical needs.
🚀 Cradle joins forces with Ginkgo Bioworks to enhance AI-driven protein engineering, becoming a key part of the Ginkgo Technology Network. This partnership aims to make advanced Machine Learning tools accessible to more bio R&D teams, speeding up the design of optimized proteins with a significant increase in productivity and a reduction in experimental rounds required.
💼 Ginkgo Bioworks acquires Reverie Labs, enhancing its AI-driven drug discovery capabilities with key assets and expertise in AI/ML for biological discovery. This move aims to accelerate the development of next-generation biological foundation models and strengthen Ginkgo's discovery services, leveraging Reverie's generative AI platform to advance small molecule programs and engineer biology more efficiently.
💰 Abridge secures $150M to enhance its AI-driven clinical documentation platform, marking significant growth in the healthcare AI sector. This funding will support R&D and expand its impact across U.S. health systems, including a new partnership with Yale New Haven Health System for improved clinical documentation and patient care.
🔬 Together AI unveils Evo, a pioneering biological foundational model for analyzing and generating DNA, RNA, and protein sequences, trained on 2.7 million prokaryotic genomes. Evo, featuring the innovative StripedHyena architecture, excels in tasks like zero-shot gene essentiality testing and novel CRISPR system design, aiming to revolutionize fields from drug discovery to sustainability.
🔬 QIAGEN launches QIAGEN Biomedical KB-AI, a generative AI-driven knowledge base, to revolutionize data-driven drug discovery. Offering over 600 million biomedical relationships, it aims to enhance understanding of disease mechanisms, drug targets, and biomarker identification, significantly expanding the scope of research for data scientists and bioinformaticians in the pharma and biotech industries.
🔬 Australia-based CRO Avance Clinical partners with Ryght to integrate generative AI technology into clinical trial processes
💰 Baseimmune, a UK-based startup leveraging AI for vaccine development against future pathogen mutations, secures £9M in Series A funding. The investment, led by MSD Global Health Innovation Fund and IQ Capital, underscores the growing focus on AI's potential in biotech, particularly for creating adaptable vaccines for pandemic preparedness.
🚨 Change Healthcare, a leading US health tech company, confirmed a cyberattack causing widespread system disruptions. This incident has impacted services nationwide, including prescription processing capabilities, with effects felt by local pharmacies and healthcare providers. The attack highlights the vulnerability of critical healthcare infrastructure to cyber threats.
🔬 Pramana, an AI-enabled health tech company, joins Proscia Ready to enhance pathology data utility with high-quality DICOM images, advancing cancer research and diagnostics. Through integration with Proscia's Concentriq platform, laboratories will benefit from enriched whole slide imaging and improved sample preparation analysis.
🔬 Optibrium introduces Semeta, a cutting-edge AI-driven metabolism prediction software for DMPK scientists, aimed at enhancing drug discovery with precise Phase I and II metabolic predictions, utilizing quantum mechanics and machine learning for improved efficiency and accuracy.
💰 Curve Therapeutics secures £10M from British Patient Capital, contributing to a £40.5M Series A funding round alongside Pfizer Ventures and others. This investment will accelerate the development of Curve's Microcycle® intracellular screening platform for novel cancer treatments, showcasing the UK's commitment to advancing life sciences innovation.
📈 Investors Flock Back to Biotech After a Long, Cold Spell (WSJ)
📈 The biotech market's key stock index, $XBI, exceeded the $100 mark, signaling a resurgence of investor optimism in the drug development industry after a tumultuous two-year period.
🔬 Medidata and Thermo Fisher Scientific's PPD Clinical Research Business renew collaboration to enhance clinical trial efficiency through Medidata's platform, including AI-powered PPD TrueCast for predictive modeling. This partnership aims to expedite studies, improve drug development productivity, and accelerate the delivery of life-changing treatments.
🚀 PulseSight Therapeutics launches with seed financing to advance non-viral gene therapies for severe retinal diseases, focusing on age-related macular degeneration. Backed by Pureos Bioventures and ND Capital, the company aims to clinically validate its minimally-invasive delivery technology, targeting significant unmet needs in ophthalmology.
🔬 Sam Altman-backed 1910 Genetics collaborates with Microsoft, leveraging Azure Quantum Elements to create a cloud platform that accelerates drug discovery through AI and high-performance computing
🔬 Lantern Pharma's AI platform, RADR®, surpasses 60 billion data points, targeting 100 billion in 2024, to accelerate the development of innovative cancer therapies, focusing on drug sensitivity, combination treatments, and biomarker data in rare cancers, as well as enhancing generative AI capabilities for molecular optimization.
I am happy to remind you that BiopharmaTrend.com is a media partner for the RNA Leaders Europe Congress, the upcoming event in Basel, Switzerland, and I will be there in person.
If you plan to be there too, just let me know, and we can grab coffee and discuss deep-tech in bio!
Event Date: March 13, 2024 - March 14, 2024
Location: Switzerland, Congress Center, Basel;
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