FarmaKology Newsletter - Issue #43
Today's Startup
Kumuda
Kumuda’s approach has the potential to save human lives for as soon as tomorrow, but will take too long to implement via academia and conventional routes. Which is why Kumuda was created. We are able to put the power of this approach into the hands of any company doing drug discovery research and development via a scalable computational platform. The algorithm developed during our founder’s PhD effectively harnesses the wealth of large scale orthogonal data sets available to more effectively assess a target’s potential to be drugged. This dramatically improves our power to get to solutions faster. Hence, saving more lives.
News
Praxis Precision Medicines Launches with over $100 Million to Advance Pipeline of High Impact Therapies for Brain Disorders
Praxis Precision Medicines, a clinical-stage, genetic neuroscience company, launched today with more than $100 million in financing since its inception from premier life science investors led by founding investor Blackstone Life Sciences (via prior Clarus funds in 2016) as well as Novo Holdings, Vida Ventures and other prominent funds. Praxis is deploying a precision medicine approach to develop high-impact therapies that target the underlying causal mechanisms of both prevalent and rare brain disorders with overlapping disease biology.
As FDA OKs Emergency Use, Gilead Commits to “Millions More” Remdesivir Treatment Courses in 2021
Gilead Sciences has committed to producing “millions more” treatment courses of its COVID-19 treatment remdesivir in 2021 “if required,” after the FDA granted the drug emergency use authorization Friday, enabling broader use of the antiviral drug in hospitalized patients with severe symptoms of the disease.“We intend to get that to patients in the early past of this next week,” Gilead chairman and CEO Daniel O’Day said yesterday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Ipsen enters into an option agreement with IRICoR and Université de Montréal for a discovery-stage oncology program
Ipsen, a global specialty-driven biopharmaceutical group, IRICoR, a pan-Canadian research commercialization center focused on drug discovery, and Université de Montréal, today announced they entered into an option agreement by which Ipsen would acquire an exclusive license for the worldwide rights to a high-value oncology program.
Applied DNA and Takis Biotech Announce the Production of Neutralizing Antibodies Against SARS-CoV-2 After DNA Vaccination in Animals
Applied DNA Sciences Inc. today announced with its COVID-19 vaccine development partner Takis Biotech that the first injections of the DNA vaccine candidates against the Spike protein (product of the S gene) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, cause of the COVID-19 disease, have produced neutralizing antibodies in test animals.