FDA gives AbbVie’s Skyrizi a Thumbs-Up for Plaque Psoriasis

Humira is AbbVie’s mega-blockbuster drug used to treat plaque psoriasis and a number of other immune diseases. In 2018, Humira brought in $19.94 billion. However, it will face biosimilar competition starting in 2023.

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Sistemic Ltd

Sistemic’s pioneering products are centred around the company’s IP and core expertise within three areas: robust miRNA profiling, superior statistical analytics and multi-layered contextual analysis. Together,these constitute the Sistemic Methodology.

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Medical

Data Analytics: A Groundbreaking Technology in Biotech

Article | July 14, 2022

Biotechnology is a vast discipline of biology that employs diverse biological systems to create solutions that can significantly alter the ways in which they operate across various domains. That said, biotechnology is not a new notion. It has existed for millennia, with ancient civilizations using its earliest incarnations to cultivate crops and create alcoholic beverages. Today, the biotechnology industry has developed by leaps and bounds and has amassed a vast quantity of scientific data through study and research. Given the importance of data in the biotechnology business, it is not difficult to understand why biotech companies utilize data analytics. Modern data analytics tools have made it possible for researchers in the biotech industry to build predictive analytics models and gain knowledge about the most efficient approaches to accomplish their desired goals and objectives. Data analytics is increasingly being adopted by biotech businesses to better understand their industry and foresee any problems down the road. How is Data Analytics Revolutionizing Fields in Biotechnology? Today's business and scientific fields greatly benefit from data. Without the analysis of vast information libraries that provide new insights and enable new innovations, no industry can really advance. Being highly reliant on big data analytics, biotech is not an exception in this regard. With the tools and methods that help scientists systematize their findings and speed up their research for better and safer results, data analytics is making deeper inroads into the biotechnology industry. It is emerging as a crucial link between knowledge and information and is extensively being used for purposes other than just examining the information that is already available. The following are a few of the cutting-edge biotechnology applications of data analytics Genomics and Disease Treatment Pharmaceutical Drug Discovery Drug Recycling and Safety Agriculture and Agri-products Environmental Damage Mitigation Data Analytics Possibilities in Biotechnology With data analytics becoming an integral part of how biotech businesses operate, biotechnologists and related stakeholders need to understand its emergence and crucial role. Data analytics has opened new frontiers in the realm of biotechnology. Thanks to developments in data analytics, research and development activities that once took years may now be accomplished in a matter of months. Also, now scientists have access to biological, social, and environmental insights that can be exploited to create more effective and sustainable products. By understanding the importance of data-related tools and techniques applications, biotech companies are aiming to invest in the popularizing technology to stay updated in the fast-paced biotechnology industry.

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Medical

Wisconsin biotech companies could play key roles in long-term economic recovery from COVID-19 pandemic

Article | August 16, 2022

Whether it’s called a modern “Manhattan Project” or a medical moon shot, the concept of long-term economic recovery rests on how confident people are they won’t risk serious illness by venturing forth in public again. Wisconsin stands to be a significant part of such an undertaking, whatever it’s called. The shorter-term debate is well under way over the gradual lifting of COVID-19 emergency rules, such as the now-extended “safer-at-home” order in Wisconsin. At least a dozen states, including regional coalitions on the East and West coasts, are exploring next steps as they seek to balance responses to the virus with calls for reopening the economy, at least, in part. Wisconsin’s ability to shape longer-term responses will come from private and public resources, which range from companies engaged in production of diagnostics.

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MedTech

Better Purification and Recovery in Bioprocessing

Article | July 12, 2022

In the downstream portion of any bioprocess, one must pick through the dross before one can seize the gold the biotherapeutic that the bioprocess was always meant to generate. Unfortunately, the dross is both voluminous and various. And the biotherapeutic gold, unlike real gold, is corruptible. That is, it can suffer structural damage and activity loss. When discarding the dross and collecting the gold, bioprocessors must be efficient and gentle. They must, to the extent possible, eliminate contaminants and organic debris while ensuring that biotherapeutics avoid aggregation-inducing stresses and retain their integrity during purification and recovery. Anything less compromises purity and reduces yield. To purify and recover biotherapeutics efficiently and gently, bioprocessors must avail themselves of the most appropriate tools and techniques. Here, we talk with several experts about which tools and techniques can help bioprocessors overcome persistent challenges. Some of these experts also touch on new approaches that can help bioprocessors address emerging challenges.

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Research

2022 U.S. Market Research Report with COVID-19 Forecasts2

Article | July 11, 2022

The global biotechnology market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.9 percent from 2022 to 2030, with a value estimated at USD 1,023.92 billion in 2021. The market is being propelled by strong government support in the form of initiatives aimed at modernizing the regulatory framework, improving approval processes and reimbursement policies, and standardizing clinical studies. The growing presence of personalized medicine and an increasing number of orphan drug formulations are opening up new avenues for biotechnology applications and driving the influx of emerging and innovative biotechnology companies, which is driving market revenue even further. The 2022 Biotech Research and Development Market Research Report is one of the most comprehensive and in-depth assessments of the industry in the United States, containing over 100 data sets spanning the years 2013 to 2026. This Kentley Insights report contains historical and forecasted market size, product lines, profitability, financial ratios, BCG matrix, state statistics, operating expense details, organizational breakdown, consolidation analysis, employee productivity, price inflation, pay bands for the top 20 industry jobs, trend analysis and forecasts on companies, locations, employees, payroll, and much more. Companies in the Biotech Research and Development industry are primarily engaged in biotechnology research and experimental development. Biotechnology research and development entails the investigation of the use of microorganisms and cellular and bimolecular processes to create or modify living or non-living materials. This biotechnology research and development may result in the development of new biotechnology processes or prototypes of new or genetically altered products that can be replicated, used, or implemented by various industries. This report was created using the findings of extensive business surveys and econometrics. The professionals follow reports with accurate and apt information on market sizing, benchmarking, strategic planning, due diligence, cost-cutting, planning, understanding industry dynamics, forecasting, streamlining, gap analysis, and other ana

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Sistemic Ltd

Sistemic’s pioneering products are centred around the company’s IP and core expertise within three areas: robust miRNA profiling, superior statistical analytics and multi-layered contextual analysis. Together,these constitute the Sistemic Methodology.

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Medical

NiKang Therapeutics Completes $200 Million Series C Financing to Advance Highly Differentiated Small Molecules Addressing Difficult-to-Drug Targets

NiKang Therapeutics | May 31, 2021

NiKang Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage biotech company focused on developing innovative small molecule oncology medicines to assist patients with unmet medical needs; today announced the completion of an oversubscribed $200 million Series C financing led by Cormorant Asset Management, HBM Healthcare Investments, and Octagon Capital Advisors with participation from a premier syndicate of funds, including new investors EcoR1 Capital, Perceptive Advisors, Wellington Management, Ally Bridge Group, Pavilion Capital, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, RA Capital Management, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Samsara BioCapital, PFM Health Sciences, Invus, Janus Henderson Investors and Logos Capital. All existing investors, including CBC Group, RTW Investments, LP, Lilly Asia Ventures, Matrix Partners China, and Casdin Capital, participated in the financing. About the funding, Bing Yao, Ph.D., former CEO and chairman of Viela Bio, and Ting Jia, Ph.D., founder and chief investment officer of Octagon Capital Advisors, will join NiKang’s Board of Directors. “We are thrilled to have such an outstanding group of investors as our shareholders,” said Zhenhai Gao, Ph.D., co-founder, president, and chief executive officer of NiKang. “Their support of our vision allows us to build the world’s leading precision oncology company. We are now well-positioned to rapidly advance our pipeline into the clinic, including our differentiated HIF-2 alpha inhibitor, and to bring our company to the next level of growth.” “This financing is a testament to the quality of our science and team,” Kelsey Chen, Ph.D., MBA, chief financial officer, added. “Since joining NiKang, I have witnessed the passion and dedication of a group of talented scientists who are devoting their lives to advancing treatments for patients. We are grateful to be recognized by such a high-caliber group of investors.” “NiKang has made remarkable progress over the last eight months since our initial investment,” said Ting Jia, Ph.D., a chief investment officer of Octagon. “We are impressed by the team’s accomplishment. We believe NiKang’s unique approach to attacking difficult-to-drug targets offers promising opportunities to develop breakthrough treatments for cancer patients. We are excited to co-lead the series C financing and partner with the NiKang team to accelerate its growth.” “We are proud of what NiKang has achieved since its inception,” said Sean Cao, executive chairman of NiKang and managing director of CBC Group, which incubated the company. “The strength of this group of investors validates NiKang’s achievements and demonstrates their confidence in NiKang’s potential to grow into a leading innovative drug company.” Proceeds will be used to advance the company’s lead drug candidates into the clinic, expand the pipeline, and fund internal drug discovery programs. About NiKang Therapeutics NiKang Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech company focused on discovering and developing innovative small molecule oncology medicines to assist patients with unmet medical needs. Our target selection is driven by deep insights into disease biology and molecular pathways. Our discovery approach is informed by target structure biology and capitalizes on structure-based drug design. The successful implementation of our strategy enables us to rapidly and efficiently discover and advance proprietary drug candidates with the most desirable pharmacological features into clinical studies. We strive to bring transformative medicines to patients in need.

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Medical

TeselaGen Biotechnology Announced the Launch of a New Protein Optimization Toolkit for Automated Biotherapeutic Drug Design and Development

TeselaGen Biotechnology | May 21, 2021

TeselaGen Biotechnology today announced the launch of a new protein optimization toolkit for biotherapeutic drug design and development, introducing significant enhancements to the company’s flagship TeselaGen® OS to form designing and developing pharmaceuticals and biotherapeutics faster and fewer expensive. The new capabilities, easily accessible via the cloud-based platform, simplify the planning of highly complex combinatorial protein libraries and support AI models for optimizing new peptides and proteins. New application programming interfaces (APIs) and integration tools have also been extended to further enhance users’ access to the new capabilities. TeselaGen integrates the facility of AI with one end-to-end platform for design, construction, data gathering, and analysis of bioproduct performance, from pharmaceuticals to food and fabrics, significantly accelerating time to plug and reducing costs. The platform’s DESIGN, BUILD, TEST, and find out modules enable researchers to effectively collaborate across an organization's development pipeline to style and build experiments, standardize and share data, and learn and preserve project results by embedding them during a machine learning model. TeselaGen’s DESIGN is an intuitive, user-interface-driven module that permits scientists to style highly complex combinatorial libraries. With this new release, the planning now supports aminoalkanoic acid parts which will be efficiently mapped to DNA. TeselaGen can then automatically generate biology protocols for efficiently synthesizing and assembling the corresponding DNA libraries. TeselaGen’s DISCOVER now supports AI models which will recommend new peptides and proteins supported by the training of supervised and unsupervised learning models. The platform also supports the modeling of unnatural amino acids and multicriteria optimization of proteins. R&D groups can utilize the TeselaGen OS to hurry the invention process. Datasets are uploaded and arranged within the platform and immediately useful for model building within TeselaGen’s DISCOVER module. TeselaGen has demonstrated that it can increase the planning and build speed of biological products and reduce the prices related to research & development by an order of magnitude. Current partnering companies are using the new capabilities for designing antibodies and optimizing their binding affinity, titer, specific productivity, immunogenicity, or other phenotypic variables of interest. Researchers also are looking to TeselaGen for rapidly engineering new vaccines - using methods like virus-like particles (VLPs), DNA, and RNA vaccines - opening the door to attacking rapidly mutating RNA and retroviruses like influenza, HCV, HIV, or coronaviruses. About TeselaGen Biotechnology TeselaGen Biotechnology has developed the primary artificial intelligence-enabled OS for biotechnology, enabling the event and commercialization of high-performance bioproducts – from pharmaceuticals to food to fabrics – faster and easier than ever. TeselaGen® connects biologists, lab technicians, and bioinformaticians so that they will collaboratively design and build experiments, organize and standardize data then test and continually learn from the info. TeselaGen has been deployed by Fortune 50 companies and emerging innovators in biopharmaceuticals, agriculture, and specialty chemicals. the corporate is privately held and based in San Francisco, California.

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AI

Iktos Partners with Kadmon to Use AI for New Drug Design

Iktos, Kadmon | May 19, 2021

Iktos, a company specializing in Artificial Intelligence for new drug design, announced today that it has signed a Research Collaboration Agreement with Kadmon, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in New York, USA, under which Iktos' generative modeling artificial intelligence (AI) technology will be used to allow the rapid and cost-effective design of novel drug candidates. Iktos will use its de novo structure-based generative modeling technologies to find novel compounds that meet a pre-defined target product profile as part of the deal, to speed up Kadmon's early-stage discovery efforts. Kadmon discovers, develops, and delivers small molecules and biologics for the treatment of human diseases. Intending to identify and develop new product candidates for significant unmet medical needs, Kadmon is expanding and incorporating novel drug discovery platforms. The AI technology developed by Iktos, which is focused on deep generative models, aids in the speed and efficiency of the drug discovery process. Iktos' technology creates virtual novel molecules that have all of the properties of a successful drug molecule automatically. This approach, which has been validated by Iktos' other collaborations, is an innovative approach to one of the most difficult problems in drug design: finding molecules that meet several important drug criteria at the same time, such as potency, selectivity, safety, and project-specific properties. Iktos' technology enables the creation of new hits with optimal protein-ligand interactions in early-stage discovery projects, as predicted by molecular modeling technology. This technique allows for a one-of-a-kind discovery of chemical space, as well as the development of innovative molecule designs with greater Freedom to Operate. Furthermore, allowing multi-parametric in silico optimization from the start of a project greatly reduces the hit finding and hit-to-lead optimization phases. About Iktos Iktos, a French start-up founded in October 2016, specializes in the development of artificial intelligence technologies for chemical research, especially medicinal chemistry, and new drug design. Iktos is working on a proprietary and innovative approach focused on deep learning generative models that allow users to build molecules in silico that follow all of the performance criteria of a small molecule discovery project using existing evidence. Iktos technology allows for significant efficiency gains in upstream pharmaceutical R&D. Iktos' software is utilized as both professional services and a SaaS software platform, Makya. Spaya, a synthesis planning software built on Iktos' proprietary AI technology for retrosynthesis, is also in the works.

Read More

Medical

NiKang Therapeutics Completes $200 Million Series C Financing to Advance Highly Differentiated Small Molecules Addressing Difficult-to-Drug Targets

NiKang Therapeutics | May 31, 2021

NiKang Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage biotech company focused on developing innovative small molecule oncology medicines to assist patients with unmet medical needs; today announced the completion of an oversubscribed $200 million Series C financing led by Cormorant Asset Management, HBM Healthcare Investments, and Octagon Capital Advisors with participation from a premier syndicate of funds, including new investors EcoR1 Capital, Perceptive Advisors, Wellington Management, Ally Bridge Group, Pavilion Capital, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, RA Capital Management, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company), Samsara BioCapital, PFM Health Sciences, Invus, Janus Henderson Investors and Logos Capital. All existing investors, including CBC Group, RTW Investments, LP, Lilly Asia Ventures, Matrix Partners China, and Casdin Capital, participated in the financing. About the funding, Bing Yao, Ph.D., former CEO and chairman of Viela Bio, and Ting Jia, Ph.D., founder and chief investment officer of Octagon Capital Advisors, will join NiKang’s Board of Directors. “We are thrilled to have such an outstanding group of investors as our shareholders,” said Zhenhai Gao, Ph.D., co-founder, president, and chief executive officer of NiKang. “Their support of our vision allows us to build the world’s leading precision oncology company. We are now well-positioned to rapidly advance our pipeline into the clinic, including our differentiated HIF-2 alpha inhibitor, and to bring our company to the next level of growth.” “This financing is a testament to the quality of our science and team,” Kelsey Chen, Ph.D., MBA, chief financial officer, added. “Since joining NiKang, I have witnessed the passion and dedication of a group of talented scientists who are devoting their lives to advancing treatments for patients. We are grateful to be recognized by such a high-caliber group of investors.” “NiKang has made remarkable progress over the last eight months since our initial investment,” said Ting Jia, Ph.D., a chief investment officer of Octagon. “We are impressed by the team’s accomplishment. We believe NiKang’s unique approach to attacking difficult-to-drug targets offers promising opportunities to develop breakthrough treatments for cancer patients. We are excited to co-lead the series C financing and partner with the NiKang team to accelerate its growth.” “We are proud of what NiKang has achieved since its inception,” said Sean Cao, executive chairman of NiKang and managing director of CBC Group, which incubated the company. “The strength of this group of investors validates NiKang’s achievements and demonstrates their confidence in NiKang’s potential to grow into a leading innovative drug company.” Proceeds will be used to advance the company’s lead drug candidates into the clinic, expand the pipeline, and fund internal drug discovery programs. About NiKang Therapeutics NiKang Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech company focused on discovering and developing innovative small molecule oncology medicines to assist patients with unmet medical needs. Our target selection is driven by deep insights into disease biology and molecular pathways. Our discovery approach is informed by target structure biology and capitalizes on structure-based drug design. The successful implementation of our strategy enables us to rapidly and efficiently discover and advance proprietary drug candidates with the most desirable pharmacological features into clinical studies. We strive to bring transformative medicines to patients in need.

Read More

Medical

TeselaGen Biotechnology Announced the Launch of a New Protein Optimization Toolkit for Automated Biotherapeutic Drug Design and Development

TeselaGen Biotechnology | May 21, 2021

TeselaGen Biotechnology today announced the launch of a new protein optimization toolkit for biotherapeutic drug design and development, introducing significant enhancements to the company’s flagship TeselaGen® OS to form designing and developing pharmaceuticals and biotherapeutics faster and fewer expensive. The new capabilities, easily accessible via the cloud-based platform, simplify the planning of highly complex combinatorial protein libraries and support AI models for optimizing new peptides and proteins. New application programming interfaces (APIs) and integration tools have also been extended to further enhance users’ access to the new capabilities. TeselaGen integrates the facility of AI with one end-to-end platform for design, construction, data gathering, and analysis of bioproduct performance, from pharmaceuticals to food and fabrics, significantly accelerating time to plug and reducing costs. The platform’s DESIGN, BUILD, TEST, and find out modules enable researchers to effectively collaborate across an organization's development pipeline to style and build experiments, standardize and share data, and learn and preserve project results by embedding them during a machine learning model. TeselaGen’s DESIGN is an intuitive, user-interface-driven module that permits scientists to style highly complex combinatorial libraries. With this new release, the planning now supports aminoalkanoic acid parts which will be efficiently mapped to DNA. TeselaGen can then automatically generate biology protocols for efficiently synthesizing and assembling the corresponding DNA libraries. TeselaGen’s DISCOVER now supports AI models which will recommend new peptides and proteins supported by the training of supervised and unsupervised learning models. The platform also supports the modeling of unnatural amino acids and multicriteria optimization of proteins. R&D groups can utilize the TeselaGen OS to hurry the invention process. Datasets are uploaded and arranged within the platform and immediately useful for model building within TeselaGen’s DISCOVER module. TeselaGen has demonstrated that it can increase the planning and build speed of biological products and reduce the prices related to research & development by an order of magnitude. Current partnering companies are using the new capabilities for designing antibodies and optimizing their binding affinity, titer, specific productivity, immunogenicity, or other phenotypic variables of interest. Researchers also are looking to TeselaGen for rapidly engineering new vaccines - using methods like virus-like particles (VLPs), DNA, and RNA vaccines - opening the door to attacking rapidly mutating RNA and retroviruses like influenza, HCV, HIV, or coronaviruses. About TeselaGen Biotechnology TeselaGen Biotechnology has developed the primary artificial intelligence-enabled OS for biotechnology, enabling the event and commercialization of high-performance bioproducts – from pharmaceuticals to food to fabrics – faster and easier than ever. TeselaGen® connects biologists, lab technicians, and bioinformaticians so that they will collaboratively design and build experiments, organize and standardize data then test and continually learn from the info. TeselaGen has been deployed by Fortune 50 companies and emerging innovators in biopharmaceuticals, agriculture, and specialty chemicals. the corporate is privately held and based in San Francisco, California.

Read More

AI

Iktos Partners with Kadmon to Use AI for New Drug Design

Iktos, Kadmon | May 19, 2021

Iktos, a company specializing in Artificial Intelligence for new drug design, announced today that it has signed a Research Collaboration Agreement with Kadmon, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in New York, USA, under which Iktos' generative modeling artificial intelligence (AI) technology will be used to allow the rapid and cost-effective design of novel drug candidates. Iktos will use its de novo structure-based generative modeling technologies to find novel compounds that meet a pre-defined target product profile as part of the deal, to speed up Kadmon's early-stage discovery efforts. Kadmon discovers, develops, and delivers small molecules and biologics for the treatment of human diseases. Intending to identify and develop new product candidates for significant unmet medical needs, Kadmon is expanding and incorporating novel drug discovery platforms. The AI technology developed by Iktos, which is focused on deep generative models, aids in the speed and efficiency of the drug discovery process. Iktos' technology creates virtual novel molecules that have all of the properties of a successful drug molecule automatically. This approach, which has been validated by Iktos' other collaborations, is an innovative approach to one of the most difficult problems in drug design: finding molecules that meet several important drug criteria at the same time, such as potency, selectivity, safety, and project-specific properties. Iktos' technology enables the creation of new hits with optimal protein-ligand interactions in early-stage discovery projects, as predicted by molecular modeling technology. This technique allows for a one-of-a-kind discovery of chemical space, as well as the development of innovative molecule designs with greater Freedom to Operate. Furthermore, allowing multi-parametric in silico optimization from the start of a project greatly reduces the hit finding and hit-to-lead optimization phases. About Iktos Iktos, a French start-up founded in October 2016, specializes in the development of artificial intelligence technologies for chemical research, especially medicinal chemistry, and new drug design. Iktos is working on a proprietary and innovative approach focused on deep learning generative models that allow users to build molecules in silico that follow all of the performance criteria of a small molecule discovery project using existing evidence. Iktos technology allows for significant efficiency gains in upstream pharmaceutical R&D. Iktos' software is utilized as both professional services and a SaaS software platform, Makya. Spaya, a synthesis planning software built on Iktos' proprietary AI technology for retrosynthesis, is also in the works.

Read More

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