Big week in fundraising as great companies with very exciting technology have secured funding. Common feature? Hard-core deep-learning platforms. Al Gore’s investment firm has laid eyes on Europe, in particular, on planetary and human health startups. If you wonder why do we fight for, scroll down to the Pharma Affairs section. Excellent news for patients with unresectable or metastatic uveal melanoma, severe aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency or follicular lymphoma (FL). Biotech and foodtech seems to be the partnership that keeps giving. Yet another week with a startup securing funding in the space. Interesting move from Alex Morgan M.D., PhD. who is now, quite literally, on board with CHARM Therapeutics. In the readings section, hold your breath, ladies and gentleman: Peter Kolchinsky. Let’s dive in!

Cambridge-based Transition Bio has raised $50 million series A. The round was led by Northpond Ventures, and seconded by Taiho Ventures, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Lifeforce Capital, and Magnetic Ventures, as well as other existing angel investors. Transition Bio is a microfluidics-driven drug discovery company. They are leveraging biophysical sciences and artificial intelligence to map and modulate biomolecular condensates, cellular structures consisting of membraneless assemblies of proteins and/or nucleic acids. These have the ability to concentrate molecules in specific loci. These condensates form via liquid-liquid phase separation, a thermodynamic process by which coexisting liquid phases form to minimise free energy. Examples of functions of biomolecular condensates are sensing and switching mechanisms in the cell, subcellular organisation, generation and transduction forces in dendritic spines, or modulation of macromolecular folding. The proceedings of the round will be used to advance their proprietary Condensomics platform, which allows for target identification and drug development. Transition Bio was launched at the end of 2020 with a seed round from Lifeforce Capital.

London-based CHARM Therapeutics has raised $50 million series A. The round was co-led by F-Prime Capital and OrbiMed, and participated by General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, Braavos and Axial. CHARM is developing small molecule therapeutics agains hard-to-drug targets in cncer and other therapeutic areas. The company is applying DragonFold, a deep learning protein ligand co-folding algorithm. Although structure-based drug design has been pivotal to drug discovery, its impact has been limited by accurately determining non-orthosteric binding sites (i.e. those that are not bound by the substrate/agonist or competitive inhibitors/agonists of enzymes/receptors) and predicting the joint positioning of ligand-protein and the strength of the interaction. DragonFold aims to tackle these challenges by using deep learning to predict the co-crystal structure of the ligand-protein interaction based on the ligand’s chemical structure and the protein’s amino acid sequence. CHARM was founded by Laksh Aithani (CEO), core contributor to Exscientia’s machine learning platform, and David Baker, PhD, Head of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington.

London-based Peptone has raised $40 million series A. The round was co-led by F-Prime and Bessemer Venture Partners, and participated by Walden Catalyst Ventures, and existing investors including Hoxton Ventures and dRX Capital (Novartis’ investment arm). Peptone is applying biophysics, atomic-level experimental approaches and machine learning to the world of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). IDPs do not have a fixed structure and yet play key roles in health and disease. Peptone is pioneering a new class of therapeutics drugs against IDPs, which have remained undruggable. The proceedings of the round will be used to advance Oppenheimer, their proprietary computational physics-based platform. Oppenheimer incorporates proprietary data from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and hydrogen-exchange mass spectroscopy (HDX-MS) which is analysed and contextualised using machine learning and NVIDIA DGX A100 supercomputer. The aim is to gain understanding of protein folding and behaviour beyond what algorithms like AlphaFold can achieve, and build a target-binder design process. Peptone was founded in 2018 by Dr Kamil Tamiola (CEO) and Dr Matthew Herberlinf (COO).

Deep Branch has been granted £4.8 million funding from the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to scale its carbon dioxide-to protein novel food platform. The funding is part of the £20 million Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) Innovation 2.0 programme. The funding will be used to finance the Deep Blue C project, aiming to integrate carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen ecosystems. Beep Branch secured the funding in partnership with CPI, an independent organisation that accelerates the development and commercialisation of deep tech products.

Miranda Medical has raised further investment from Apposite Capital, bringing the total investment to £20 million of net growth capital. Miranda Medical is developing precision imaging software and image guided tools for cancer care. It has formed a global collaboration with GE Healthcare to integrate its automation and AI technology to enable better cancer radiotherapy treatment. Miranda has also partnered with Boston Scientific to develop and commercialise its proprietary software Simplicit90Y

London-based Generation has launched the Sustainable Solutions Fund IV, with $1.7 billion to deploy. Al Gore, former US vice president and environmentalist, launched the first fund in 2008 and their focus on Europe has increased ever since. Generation will operate as a minority investor and write checks between $50 to $150 million. The fund will invest on planetary health, human health and financial inclusion startups based in UK and the rest of Europe.

UK Government has launched the Innovative Medicines Fund. The aim is to facilitate access to cutting-edge treatments on NHS. The £340 million fund will purchase or facilitate the development of promising medicines. It builds on the success of the Cancer Drugs Fund which has provided more than 80,000 people with life-extending drugs, such as CAR-T therapy, Larotrectinib or Ribociclib.

Friends, I am going on a limb here: patents are going to be a very hot topic in the coming months (and years!). Two main reasons: first, a rather cold patent winter is coming. Second, just look at the startup funding news section. Three large series A in three companies, they all incorporate hard-core deep learning elements to their value proposition. However, our patent system might not be up to date with what the AI/ML-driven discoveries might require. We will explore in more detail these issues in the Cambridge Biocapital coming section Biotech Beats. Stay tuned!

The National Biofilms Innovation Center (NBIC) has launched the Biofilms Innovate UK Innovation to Commercialisation of University Research (ICURe) programme. Six academic teams from across UK will be able to explore the commercial market for their research. Each team will be awarded £20,000 of funding. The selected projects are BioPepTex (University of Liverpool), METzero (Newcastle University), Wipe Warriors (Cardiff University), LCPaD (University of Nottingham), BioTryp Therapeutics (University of Cambridge), and MX-Raman (University of Southampton).

Cambridge-based Eagle Genomics has joined the strategic Danish-Swedish Medicon Valley Alliance (MVA). Eagle Genomics is applying network science to microbiome biology and developing e[datascientist], an AI-augmented knowledge discovery platform.

Bristol-based Graphcore and Aleph Alpha have signed a collaboration agreement to work together on research and deployment of Aleph Alpha’s multi-modal models on current Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs) systems, which would have a direct and critical impact on many deep learning-driven biotech platforms. The partnership represents a significant alliance since Graphcore and Aleph Alpha are two leading AI companies and have together attracted $700 million of investment.

Axol Biosciences has announced its human induced pluripotent stem cell -derived ventricular cardiomyocites have undergone in vitro pro-arrhythmia assay (CiPa) validation. This shows validation for measuring cardiotoxicity, thus offering a suitable cardiac model for drug discovery.

Optibrium is expanding UK head office into Cambridge Innovation Park. The new facility will support the company’s drug discovery technologies and software solutions for small molecule design, optimisation and data analysis.

The British Heart Foundation, The Guardian and ITV have featured Manchester BIOGEL’s peptide hydrogel technology.

Labs are now up and running at Cellected!

Dr Simon Cook has been appointed as Director of the Babraham Institute. Dr Cook has worked at Babraham since 1997 and undertook his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Michael Wakelam at the University of Glasgow. His researchfocuses on the molecular biology of signal transduction.

Announcing funding rounds and appointments to the Board of Directors all together is becoming trendy! Transition Biohas announced updates to its Board of Directors. Shilpi Arora, former VP at Exo Therapeutics, has joined as Senior vice-President of Discovery Research. Alfred W. Sandrock, Jr., M.D., Ph.D, CEO at Voyager Therapeutics and former Head of Research at Biogen, has been appointed as independent director. Shaan C Gandhi, M.D., head of the biotechnologies group at Northpond Ventures, has also been appointed to the board.

CHARM Therapeutics has appointed Gary D. Glick PhD. as Executive Chair of the Board of Directors. Glick has founded IMF Therapeutics, Scorpion Therapeutics, and Odyssey Therapeutics. Sarah Skerratt, PhD., (former Head of Preclinical Sciences at MSD, ex-Vertex Pharmaceuticals, ex-Pfizer) has been appointed Senior Vice President and Sergey Bartunov PhD., (Google DeepMind) has been appointed Director of AI. In addition, Muz Mansuri, PhD., Venture Partner at F-Prime Capital, and Rishi Gupta J.D., Partner at OrbiMed, Chris Bischoff, Managing Director at General Catalyst, Alex Morgan M.D., PhD., (founder and ex-CEO at Intellia Therapeutics), Partner at Khosla Ventures, a have also been appointed to the Board.

Etcembly has appointed Nick Pumphrey as Chief Scientific Officer, bringing over 20 years of expereince in T Cell receptors (TCR) engineering expertise and adoptive cell-baased therapy. Etcembly aims to build the world’s largest machine-learning database and unmatched immunology expertise to deliver TCR immunotherapies.

Metrion Biosciences has appointed Benedetta Montagnini, PhD as Head of European Business Development. Dr. Montagnini was Business Development Manager at Eurofins Discovery and DiscoveRx, and Account Manager for Invitrogen’s Industrial BioProcessing Division.

SMC, a manufacturing of pharmaceutical and medical devices provider, has announced opening of Cambridge Pharma. The new 20,000 sq. ft. facility is located at the Cambridge Research Park. The company will offer process development and scale up, sterile fill finish for clinical trials and a range of QC and QP testing.

Excellent news for patients with unresectable or metastatic uveal melanoma (mUM). Oxford-based Immunocore(Nasdaq: IMCR) KIMMTRAK has received approval from the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and Health Canada. This makes KIMMTRAK to be the first and only treatment approved in the UK, Australia, and Canada to treat patients with mUM. KIMMTRAK is also the first bispecific T cell engager to receive approval to treat solid tumours. It is a novel bispecific protein comprised of a soluble T cell receptor fused to an anti-CD3. The complex targets gp100, a lineage antigen expressed in melanocytes and melanoma and constitutes the first molecule developed using Immunocore’s ImmTAC technology platform.

European Medicines Agency has granted marketing authorisation under exceptional circumstances for PTC Therapeutics International Limited’s Upstaza (eladocagene exuparvovec), a therapy for adult and paediatric patients with severe aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase (AADC) deficiency with a genetically confirmed diagnosis. AADC is an ultra-rare 1 in 118,000 people in the EU) genetic nervous system disorder that manifests in the first year of life. Upstaza is a modified adeno-associated viral vector containing a functional version of the AADC gene that is delivered by infusion into the brain. According to the EMA, “a marketing authorisation under exceptional circumstances allows patients access to medicines that cannot be approved using a standard authorisation route as comprehensive data cannot be obtained under normal conditions of use, either because there are only very few patients with the disease”.

European Medicines Agency has granted conditional marketing authorisation to Roche’s first-in-class CD20xCD3 T cell bispecific antibody Lunsumio (mosunetuzumab) for people with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma (FL), the most common slow-growing form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It represents a new type of chemotherapy-free off-the-shelf immunotherapy that could improve outcomes for people with FL.

UK is calling on clinical trial sponsors to winnow down trials that are still ongoing but are not viable. Although Oxford’s Recovery trial for Covid therapeutics served as a model for the world, there are many duplications and small trials that can only yield tantalising information. A similar initiative is taking place in the US.

Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre 3 has received FDA clearance. FreeStyle Libre 3 is the world’s smallest and most accurate 14-day glucose sensor. It can send readings directly toa smartphone every minute and is designed for affordability, one 1/3 of other competing continuous glucose monitoring systems available.

Peter Kolchinsky, founder and Managing Partner at RA Capital Management, has written a long piece on the state of things in the global biotech ecosystem and how to navigate the current downturn.

Great episode in Careers in Discovery. Guest star: Claire Thompson, CEO and founder at Agility Life Sciences.

Connect: Health Tech, the Cambridge University Entreprise Zone podcast has interviewed Jason Mellad, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Start Codon, about taking ideas into proof-of-concept. There are two episodes, part 1 and part 2.

The trouble with ESG investment.

Full-genome screening for newborn babies is now on the cards.