Digest 9/11/23
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
Diverse clonal fates emerge upon drug treatment of homogeneous cancer cells led by Yogesh Goyal from the Arjun Raj lab https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06342-8
Vault: BridgeBio
Noetik raised $14M led by Data Collective:
- Founded in 2022, to build out their platform merging spatial biology and machine learning, to develop cancer immunotherapies
- Expanding their dataset to >100s of Tbs
- Building foundational models for cell and tissue biology
PipeBio is a cloud-based bioinformatics platform for biologics discovery. It allows wet lab scientists to easily analyze antibody and peptide sequences with functional assay data, and bioinformaticians to deploy their own code and run workflows. PipeBio integrates bioinformatics tools for antibody, TCR, and peptide sequence analysis:
- Identifying candidate sequences from large-scale NGS antibody repertoires
- Hybridoma sequencing
- Clonal expansion in biopanning experiments
- Identifying liabilities and assessing antibody developability
- Sequence database and storage
- Automated workflows and integration
Moderna announced a new partnership with Immatic to develop cancer vaccines & cell therapies, in a deal worth up to $1.7B. With $120M paid upfront.
Where the two companies will work on mRNA-enabled, in vivo expressed T-cell engaging receptors (TCER) molecules to create new cancer vaccines, bispecifics and cell therapies. With Immatics offering its IMA203 PRAME TCR-T for combination with Moderna’s investigational PRAME mRNA cancer vaccine. The companies will each maintain ownership of their respective programs.
M4205, a selective KIT inhibitor. Developed by Merck
The molecule is a non-classical hinge binder-containing kinase inhibitor. KIT is a class III receptor tyrosine kinase. And difficult to target effectively due to its high propensity for both mutations in the KIT gene, and secondary mutations within the ATP-binding pocket leading to 5% recurrence in primary disease and up to 90% recurrence for locally advanced disease.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jmedchem.2c00851
Worth a Read: 'Large Language Models in Molecular Biology' https://towardsdatascience.com/large-language-models-in-molecular-biology-9eb6b65d8a30
Scientist Stories: Uri Alon, Geometry of Phenotype Space
DNA element responsive to extrachromosomal DNA in cancer cells
Inventors: Howard Chang, King Hung, Quanming Shi
Assignee: Stanford
Claims: nucleic acid with a promoter of the PVT1 gene operably linked to a heterologous nucleic acid sequence that encodes a cytotoxic protein or a protein that induces an immune response
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/1f/0b/95/c1798ade16104a/WO2023064778A1.pdf
SIM-PAL: proteome wide identification of small molecule binding sites invented by Christina Woo https://otd.harvard.edu/explore-innovation/technologies/sim-pal-proteome-wide-identification-of-small-molecule-binding-sites/
Applications: map out a protein/small molecule interactome in a cell versus in vitro
Resilience is hiring a Senior Manager for Process Automation https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3677848508
Resilience is manufacturing and technology company dedicated to broadening access to complex medicines and protecting biopharmaceutical supply chains against disruption
Fabric Genomics is a computational genomics company that provides end-to-end genomic data analysis, annotation, curation, classification, and reporting solutions. To clinical/hospital labs and life science companies. Fabric's analytic capabilities begin with raw data analysis and include the delivery of comprehensive insights from high throughput panels, exomes, and whole genomes.
Founded in 2009, Fabric works with companies like Roche & Labcorp to institutions like Vanderbilt, NHS, and Intermountain. In 2022, with the Broad Institute, launching a $1K sample-to-report clinical whole genome service. Burnishing their leadership position as a provider of genomic data analysis products. To transform genomic data into new diagnostics & treatments.
"A lot of biotechs are founded on the German academic model, with a couple PIs and their closest troops. As the firm expands, later employees are considered less important. In contrast, we believe that the last person in the door is just as important as the first. We consciously reject the German model for the Silicon Valley model. We want the guy on the loading dock to be thinking about clinical programs."
- Joshua Boger, Founder & CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals
