Despite the successes of immunotherapies to date, about 75 to 80 percent of cancer patients don’t respond to current immunotherapy treatments. Faron Pharmaceuticals is hoping to help change that with its experimental therapy bexmarilimab, which is in development to treat myelodysplastic syndrome. Bexmarilimab targets CLEVER-1, a checkpoint inhibitor found on macrophages, a type of myeloid cell that plays an essential role in the immune system. We spoke to Juho Jalkanen, founder and CEO of Faron, about how the tumor microenvironment can suppress macrophages, how the company’s macrophage checkpoint inhibitor works, and the challenges a Finland-based company faces accessing the capital markets.
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The Search for a New Approach to Male Contraception
There’s been a stunning lack of innovation around male contraceptives when it comes to the area of male contraceptives. Men have the choice between a vasectomy, a procedure innovated in the 19th century, or condoms, which date back to at least King Minos in Crete in 3000 BCE. Next Life Sciences is hoping to change that with its Plan A, an experimental hydrogel that is injected into the vas deferens and provides a barrier that prevents sperm from passing. Plan A, which is regulated as a medical device, is expected to be easily reversible. We spoke to Darlene Walley, CEO of Next Life Sciences, about Plan A, the need it is addressing, and why she expects men and women to see it as a welcome alternative to current choices.
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Crafting a One-and-Done Epigenetic Editor to Tackle Hepatitis B
There have been great advances in the treatment of hepatitis C with the advent of curative therapies, but hepatitis B has proven far more elusive. That’s due to differences in the way the virus replicates and how it creates a reservoir of viral DNA in the cells in the liver. nChroma Bio, the result of a merger between Chroma Medicine and Nvelop Therapeutics, thinks it has an answer. It’s developing a one-and-done epigenetic editing therapy that silences hepatitis B viral transcription. We spoke to nChroma Bio chief development officer Jenny Marlowe and chief scientific officer Melissa Bonner, about its experimental epigenetic editor for hepatitis B, the merger that brought together the two companies, and how it plans to leverage Chroma’s epigenetic editing platform with Nvelop’s programmable non-viral delivery technologies in future therapies.
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Making Clinical Trials More Predictable with AI
Craig Lipset, advisor and founder of Clinical Innovation Partners, sits down with Nagaraja Srivatsan to discuss how AI can bring greater predictability to clinical trials, how organizations can adopt the technology effectively, and the importance of having a culture of experimentation.
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Fueling AI Drug Development with Patient Biology
While AI has been seductive in its promise for revolutionizing drug development, one of the constraints remains the quality of the data that is used by any given platform. BPG Bio, an early innovator in the application of AI to drug development as Berg, is taking what it calls a “biology-first” approach. It capitalizes on its proprietary biobank to conduct multi-omics analysis to understand the biological mechanisms of diseases. We spoke to Niven Narain, CEO of BPGbio, about how the company’s platform technology uncovers novel targets, its evolution from its start as Berg, and how the platform continues to provide insight into experimental therapies after they advance to the clinic.
The Bio Report podcast, hosted by award-winning journalist Daniel Levine, focuses on the intersection of biotechnology with business, science, and policy.
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