The Bio Report

Jeremiah Robison’s daughter Sofia was born with cerebral palsy, a congenital movement disorder. Watching her physicians use body monitors to measure her gait, and later apply functional electrical stimulation as physical therapy, gave him an idea to combine the two to create a sleeve that could be worn on her leg to improve her ability to walk. Now Cionic, the company he co-founded, is producing its Neural Sleeves to help people with a variety of mobility impairments better navigate the world. We spoke to Robison, CEO of Cionic, about the Neural Sleeve, how functional electronical stimulation helps people with movement disorders walk, and how the use of adaptive algorithms continuously optimizes the stimulation it delivers.

Physicians treating people with burns typically incorrectly assess the depth of burn wounds in about 25 to 30 percent of cases. That, in part, is due to a lack of diagnostic tools to assess the severity of a burn and to determine the best approach to treatment. Spectral AI has developed the DeepView System, a predictive device that offers clinicians an objective and immediate assessment of a wound’s healing potential prior to treatment or other medical interventions. We spoke to Pete Carlson, CEO of Spectral AI, about the company’s AI-driven DeepView System, how it works, and how it changes outcomes for patients.

New York City is not the first place that comes to mind when thinking of biotech clusters, but the Big Apple has been a growing center of biomedical innovation with its mix of academic research hospitals, finance, and growing number of biopharmaceutical companies. One place that’s seeking to serve as both a home to innovative companies and facilitate collaborations is Cure, which describes itself as a healthcare innovation campus. We spoke to Seema Kumar, CEO of Cure, about how it operates, its various initiatives, and what can be done to accelerate the movement of innovative technologies from the lab to the marketplace.

Murray Aitken from IQVIA discusses the growth in biopharma R&D funding and drug launches in 2023. He talks about the increase in M&A activity, the new patent cliff, and trends for 2024, including Chinese innovation and financing opportunities.

In January 2023, AstraZeneca agreed to acquire CinCor Pharma, the CinRx cardio-renal disease therapy subsidiary, for $1.3 billion. The deal included a potential additional $500 million milestone payment. The price represented a 121 percent premium to CinCor’s market value at the time and could grow to more than a 200 percent premium if the milestone is met. The sale represented validation of CinRX’s portfolio approach to build multiple biotech companies supported with a dedicated funding mechanism. We spoke to Jon Isaacsohn, founder and CEO of CinRx, about the company’s portfolio approach, how its business model allows it to accelerate the development of needed medicines, and its efforts to develop new obesity therapies.

Antibody-drug conjugates can deliver chemotherapy directly to tumors but more than 95 percent of the dose often ends up in healthy tissues, decreasing efficacy and increasing toxicity. Mythic Therapeutics FateControl technology improves the uptake of ADCs in cancerous cells while avoiding the release of their toxic payloads in healthy ones. This promises to increase efficacy of these therapies in a wide range of cancers without causing unacceptable side-effects. We spoke to Brian Fiske, co-founder, chief scientific officer of Mythic, about the challenges that have held back the benefits of ADCs, how the company’s FateControl technology addresses those, and how it is thinking of building a pipeline of ADCs across indications.

The HGF/MET neurotrophic system plays a critical role in the maintenance and repair of connections in the brain. Enhanced signaling along this pathway has the potential to reduce inflammation, slow neurodegeneration, and provide neuroprotection. Athira Pharma is pursuing small molecule drugs that target this pathway to address a range of neurodegenerative conditions. The company is currently conducting a phase 2/3 study of its lead therapeutic candidate, fosgonimeton, in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease. But the study comes after the experimental therapy failed to meet its primary endpoint in a phase 2 study in Alzheimer’s disease and a phase 2 study in Parkinson’s disease dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies. We spoke to Rachel Lenington, chief operating officer of Athira Pharma, about the case for targeting the HGF/MET neurotrophic system in neurodegenerative diseases, how its experimental therapy fosgonimeton works, and why its continuing to pursue the therapy despite earlier failures.

The advent of induced pluripotent stem cells, cells that can be coaxed into becoming virtually any type of cell within the body, promised to usher in a new era of regenerative medicine and improved drug discovery. In practice, though, the ability to use these cells to develop desired cell types has proved challenging to do in a predictable way and at scale. Bit.bio, has developed a synthetic biology platform that it says allows it to industrialize this process and produce desired cells in a consistent manner. We spoke to Mark Kotter, founder and CEO of Bit.Bio, about the company’s platform technology, its effort to develop cell therapies, and its growing offering of precision reprogramed human cells for drug development.  

Some 100 trillion gigabytes of data are created and consumed each year, an amount that is expected to double by 2025. The demand for data storage carries the need for significant physical space and power requirements in the form of digital data centers. DNA, though, may represent a solution to what some see as unsustainable growth with environmental consequences. DNA, it turns out, is a dense and durable way to store information. At the end of last year, Paris-based Biomemory launched its DNA Cards, the first DNA data storage ever offered to the general public. The DNA memory cards, about the size of a credit card-sized today may seem more like a curiosity than a viable solution. At $1,000 each, they can store a kilobyte of data, enough to store a single, brief email. We spoke to Erfane Awani, founder and CEO of Biomemory, about the use of DNA for data storage, how it works, and how quickly the technology can scale to where it competes with today’s data storage infrastructure.

People tend to think of each person having their own unique genome. Quotient Therapeutics is taking an approach to drug discovery based on the reality that from cell to cell within a given individual, there can be trillions of divergent genomes. Changes in cells throughout the body can alter how a cell responds to disease and point to new ways to cure, treat, or prevent conditions. We spoke to Jacob Rubens, president of Quotient, about the company’s platform technology, how it uncovers genetic mutations at a cellular level, and its efforts to build a pipeline of therapies around the insights it gains.