Some of the biggest news and trends captured in PharmaVoice’s newsletter this week. Sign up here to receive the newsletter daily.
Another big AI haul
Investors are still lining up to back AI drug developers before their candidates reach human trials.
Basecamp Research just netted $140 million in a series C fundraising round that valued the company at $800 million, according to Reuters. But so far, the upstart’s six-program pipeline, which runs the gamut from oncology to diabetes treatments, remains preclinical.
Other AI-assisted drug programs are much further along. An experimental psoriasis pill Nimbus Therapeutics created leveraging machine learning and computational chemistry was later sold for $4 billion up front to Takeda. That drug has even bested a potential rival — BMS’ Sotyktu — in a phase 3 head-to-head trial.
This week, we found out how Nimbus actually used AI to help design the treatment — and where the company’s R&D head sees the technology heading next.
J&J and Compass’ potential psychedelic rivalry
A psychedelic drug showdown is brewing in the depression space.
J&J’s esketamine-based nasal spray Spravato is one of the only FDA drugs approved for treatment-resistant depression and snagged over $1 billion in sales in the first half of this year alone.
But Compass Pathways may be headed toward a launch for its psilocybin-based therapy for TRD, with a rolling NDA submission underway and hopes to file for an FDA approval this year. It’s already got a competitive pitch for patients, too, that draws a contrast with Spravato.
“Spravato is a tough treatment to sign up for,” Compass’ Chief Patient Officer Steve Levine recently told BioPharma Dive. “It’s 25- to 50 day-long treatments per year. …It’s about a three-hour visit. But for a patient, a day is a day.”
By contrast, phase 3 data from Compass shows patients who took one or two doses of its therapy demonstrated a durable response for at least six months.
This emerging market fight has an IP counterpart. Psychedelic developers are navigating a tricky legal terrain themselves with patent challenges for new formulations, dosing regimens and therapeutic uses for centuries-old compounds. J&J recently scored a victory on that front with its Spravato patent win. This week, we looked at what it could mean for the space.
Mayo deepens drug R&D push
Mayo Clinic is diving deeper into the drug R&D game. After striking a major research collab with Merck earlier this year, the large hospital system is now teaming up with Thermo Fisher Scientific to launch a new company aimed at supporting research into identifying the early biological signs of disease before symptoms start burdening patients.
Called Precure, the startup will “create one of the world’s leading biomedical datasets through one of the largest human multi-omics data-generation efforts” to set the stage for developing new drugs and diagnostics, the companies said.
Thermo, a minority owner of Precure, is bringing its know-how in proteomics and mass spectrometry to the table. The life sciences giant has in fact amassed a wide range of research capabilities in part thanks to recent CRO acquisitions, such as the contract research firm PPD. This week, we dove into the ongoing M&A push in the CRO space and what it means for pharma companies.
