As small mol­e­cule com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to get se­ri­ous cash from in­vestors as well as back­ing from ma­jor phar­ma com­pa­nies such as Eli Lil­ly, Cal­i­for­nia-based Brid­Gene Bio­sciences is look­ing to stay ahead of the pack.

The com­pa­ny an­nounced Wednes­day morn­ing it pulled in a $38.5 mil­lion Se­ries B, which will be go­ing to­wards fur­ther de­vel­op­ing its plat­form, dubbed IM­TAC. The plat­form al­lows Brid­Gene to screen small mol­e­cules against a tar­get in live cells to dis­cov­er pos­si­ble drug can­di­dates, main­ly in un­drug­gable tar­gets, in­clud­ing for can­cers. The com­pa­ny will al­so be look­ing to ex­pand its small mol­e­cule li­brary as well.

Brid­Gene’s Se­ries B comes on­ly a year af­ter the com­pa­ny made some se­ri­ous moves. In 2021, not on­ly did Brid­Gene se­cure a $12 mil­lion Se­ries A, but it al­so net­ted a deal with Japan­ese drug gi­ant Take­da for them to use their plat­form, po­ten­tial­ly worth up to $500 mil­lion. CEO Ping Cao said in an in­ter­view with End­points News that the two com­pa­nies will an­nounce the mile­stones on that project in the next few months.

Cao al­so said that in the time be­tween the two rais­es, the com­pa­ny has been fo­cused on build­ing out its small mol­e­cule li­brary and fur­ther op­ti­miz­ing the plat­form. The mol­e­cules that have been un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Brid­Gene have been use­ful in high-val­ue tar­gets, and the com­pa­ny is putting to­geth­er a pipeline, Cao added. The com­pa­ny’s lead pro­gram is a TEAD in­hibitor, and their pipeline has a few oth­er undis­closed on­col­o­gy pro­grams.

The Se­ries B will give Brid­Gene a run­way of two years, with  ex­ecs hop­ing to have a clin­i­cal tri­al up and run­ning by 2024.

The com­pa­ny is al­so look­ing to ex­pand its head­count. Cao said he is look­ing to have around 40 em­ploy­ees by the mid­dle of next year, up from the cur­rent to­tal of 24.

While the small mol­e­cule space con­tin­ues to be crowd­ed, Cao said that his com­pa­ny’s plat­form is what is go­ing to set them apart from the pack, say­ing it can screen co­va­lent and non-co­va­lent small mol­e­cules. Al­so, the com­pa­ny is not just tar­get­ing cys­tine residue, which on­ly ac­counts for 3.3% of pro­tein abun­dance, but al­so oth­er amino acids to get bet­ter pro­tein cov­er­age.

Cao not­ed that with the mar­ket down­turn and Covid-19 hav­ing an im­pact on meet­ing peo­ple for fundrais­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, the fact that it was able to get the deal across the line was huge for Brid­Gene’s fu­ture.

Wednes­day’s round was fi­nanced by the in­vest­ment firms La­pam Cap­i­tal, Jun­son Cap­i­tal and Dy­ee Cap­i­tal.

Avance Clinical is the Australian CRO for international biotechs providing world-class clinical research services with FDA-accepted data across all phases. With Avance Clinical, biotech companies can leverage Australia’s supportive clinical trials environment which includes no IND requirement plus a 43.5% Government incentive rebate on clinical spend. The CRO has been delivering clinical drug development services for international biotechs for FDA and EMA regulatory approval for the past 24 years. The company has been recognized for the past two consecutive years with the prestigious Frost & Sullivan CRO Best Practices Award and a finalist in Informa Pharma’s Best CRO award for 2022.

Pfizer was first to the finish line for the next-gen pneumococcal vaccine in adults, but Merck beat its rival with a jab for children in June.

Now, two months after Merck’s 15-valent Vaxneuvance won the FDA stamp of approval for kids, Pfizer is out with some late-stage data on its 20-valent shot for infants.

Known as Prevnar 20 for adults, Pfizer’s 20vPnC will head to the FDA by the end of this year for an approval request in infants, the Big Pharma said Friday morning. Discussions with the FDA will occur first and more late-stage pediatric trials are expected to read out soon, informing the regulatory pathway in other countries and regions.

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Two children with spinal muscular atrophy have died after receiving Novartis’ Zolgensma, a gene therapy designed as a one-time treatment for the rare fatal disease.

The deaths, which resulted from acute liver failure, occurred in Russia and Kazakhstan, Novartis confirmed in a statement to Endpoints News. Having notified health authorities across all the markets where Zolgensma is available, it will update the drug label “to specify that fatal acute liver failure has been reported,” a spokesperson wrote.

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The US House of Representatives today voted along party lines (all Dems voted for it), 220-207 to pass new, wide-ranging legislation that will allow Medicare drug price negotiations for the first time ever, and cap seniors’ drug expenses to $2,000 per year and seniors’ insulin costs at $35 per month.

Setting up a major victory for President Joe Biden, representatives returned from their summer recess to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, even as many noted the bill would only modestly reduce inflation.

Amgen is the latest pharma company to appear on the radar of Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), who is investigating the way pharma companies are using subsidiaries in low- or zero-tax countries to lower their tax bills.

Like its peers Merck, AbbVie and Bristol Myers Squibb, Wyden notes how Amgen uses its Puerto Rico operations to consistently pay tax rates that are substantially lower than the U.S. corporate tax rate of 21%, with an effective tax rate of 10.7% in 2020 and 12.1% in 2021.

As public biotechs seek to climb out of the bear market, a popular strategy to raise cash has been through public offerings on the heels of positive data. But one proposed raise Wednesday appeared to take advantage not of a company’s own data, but those from a competitor.

Cerevel Therapeutics plans to raise $250 million in a public offering and another $250 million in debt, the biotech announced Wednesday afternoon, even though it did not report any news on its pipeline. However, the move comes days after rival Karuna Therapeutics touted positive Phase III data in schizophrenia, a field where Cerevel is pursuing a similar program.

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AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s antibody-drug conjugate Enhertu scored its second approval in less than a week, this time for a subset of lung cancer patients.

Enhertu received accelerated approval on Thursday to treat adults with unresectable or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have activating HER2 (ERBB2) mutations, and who have already received a prior systemic therapy.

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After controversially spinning out its talc liabilities and filing for bankruptcy in an attempt to settle 38,000 lawsuits, Johnson & Johnson is now changing up the formula for its baby powder products.

J&J is beginning the transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio, the pharma giant announced on Thursday — just months after a federal judge ruled in favor of its “Texas two-step” bankruptcy to settle allegations that its talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer. An appeals court has since agreed to revisit that case.

CSL is gathering its brands under the family name umbrella, renaming its vaccine and newly acquired nephrology specialty businesses with the parent initials.

CSL Seqirus and CSL Vifor join CSL Plasma and CSL Behring as the four now uniformly branded business units of the global biopharma. The Seqirus vaccine division was formed in 2015 with the combination of bioCSL and its purchase of Novartis’ flu vaccine business. CSL picked up Vifor Pharma late last year in an $11.7 billion deal for the nephrology, iron deficiency and cardio-renal drug developer.

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Bioscience & Technology Business Center The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas

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