Digest 8/20/23
Surveying great inventors and businesses
Axial: https://linktr.ee/axialxyz
Axial partners with great founders and inventors. We invest in early-stage life sciences companies such as Appia Bio, Seranova Bio, Delix Therapeutics, Simcha Therapeutics, among others often when they are no more than an idea. We are fanatical about helping the rare inventor who is compelled to build their own enduring business. If you or someone you know has a great idea or company in life sciences, Axial would be excited to get to know you and possibly invest in your vision and company . We are excited to be in business with you - email us at info@axialvc.com
Strain dropouts reveal interactions that govern the metabolic output of the gut microbiome led by Min Wang from the Michael Fischbach lab https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)00589-5
Vault: Using Cell Therapies to Cure Autoimmunity
MoonLake Immunotherapeutics:
- Founded in 2021 to develop biologics for inflammation
- Focusing on Sonelokimab, a nanobody in trials for hidradenitis suppurativa, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis & axial spondyloarthritis.
- Inhibiting IL-17A and IL-17F
The lead's MoA inhibits the naturally occurring IL-17A/A, IL-17A/F, and IL-17F/F dimers that drive inflammation.
Sonelokimab = ~40 kDa humanized nanobody with 3 VHH domains covalently linked by flexible glycine-serine spacers. With 2 domains binding to IL-17A/F with high affinity. A third central domain binds to human albumin, for enrichment of sonelokimab at sites of inflammatory edema.
Sonelokimab has been tested in a randomized, placebo-controlled phase 2b trial in 313 patients with moderate-to-severe plaque-type psoriasis
Neurocrine Biosciences announced that the FDA approved INGREZZA (valbenazine) as a once-daily treatment to reduce chorea associated with Huntington's disease (HD).
INGREZZA is a selective vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) inhibitor. Most people with HD experience chorea, an abnormal involuntary movement disorder, characterized by irregular and unpredictable movements. Chorea can affect various body parts and interfere with motor coordination, gait, swallowing and speech. HD is estimated to affect approximately 41,000 adults in the U.S., with more than 200,000 at risk of inheriting the disease.
The drug's phase 3 trial enrolled 128 adults 18 to 75 years of age who were diagnosed with motor-manifest HD and who had sufficient chorea symptoms to meet study protocol criteria.
VK2809
An oral THR agonist prodrug with positive phase II data in NASH
It's a thyroid hormone mimetic prodrug identified by Metabasis and developed by Viking Therapeutics
Activatable Binding Polypeptides and Methods of Identification and Use Thereof
Inventors: Patrick Sean Daugherty, Nancy Stagliano, Jerry Thomas, Kathryn Kamath, James West, Sanjay Khare, Jason Sagert
Current Assignee: University of California & CytomX Therapeutics
Claims: An activatable binding polypeptide (ABP) with a target binding moiety (TBM) that specifically binds to VEGF-A, a masking moiety (MM) that inhibits binding of the TBM to its target protein when the ABP is in an uncleaved state & a cleavable moiety (CM) that is a substrate for a protease. With following structure: MM-CM-TBM or TBM-CM-MM
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/5b/fe/4d/448e40eda90525/US20220098294A1.pdf
Single Conjugative Vector for Genome Editing by RNA-guided transposition invented by Jennifer Doudna
Applications: integrating large segments of DNA from bioactive clusters for heterologous expression to genome editing, limited to microbes right now
https://techtransfer.universityofcalifornia.edu/NCD/31691.html
Arc Institute is hiring a Scientific Recruiting Advisor https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3509612860
The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution that conducts curiosity-driven basic science and technology development to understand and treat complex human diseases
Scientist Stories: Nicola Rieke, Federated Learning for Healthcare
"Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge."
- Carl Sagan
