Receptor Life Sciences (RLS), a pharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies to address central nervous system disorders, announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for RLS102. This first-in-class, pure synthetic CBD capsule is being investigated for the treatment of irritability in patients with autism spectrum disorder. RLS102 is a novel formulation that…
Worried about health effects from the U.S.’s increasingly smoky summers? One day, not far in the future, you may be able to pop a few pills that will help your cells pinpoint and extract the worst of the airborne carcinogens before they can do any harm. Sound completely science-fictional? It gets better. Future space travelers bound for Mars may take…
Modulus Therapeutics, a Seattle-based cellular therapy company spun out of the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence (AI2), announced $3.5 million in seed funding. The company combines laboratory research with machine learning to engineer immune cells with enhanced anti-tumor powers. Modulus focuses on generating performance-enhancing genetic changes in natural killer (NK) cells, an up-and-coming immune cell type in the cell therapy…
Seattle-based biotech company Lumen Bioscience, which manufactures proteins in algae, will expand its manufacturing operations to a former bakery in the city’s Wallingford neighborhood, the company announced today. Until the COVID-19 pandemic, the handsome brick building housed a café for the Essential Baking Company, across the street from Lumen’s current operations. “We used to go there for sandwiches,” said Brian Finrow, Lumen’s CEO.…
A new method developed by Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) and University of California, Riverside provides new insights into cancer biology by allowing researchers to show how fatty acids are absorbed by single cells. Fatty acids, along with glucose and amino acids, are a major energy source for cellular growth and proliferation, and abnormal fatty acid metabolism is often seen…
Shape Therapeutics, a Seattle preclinical stage biotech company developing RNA editing and gene therapy technologies, has raised $112 million. The company’s RNA editing technologies are spun out of the lab of co-founder Prashant Mali, a bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego who is on Shape’s scientific advisory board. Shape is also improving methods to deliver genetic material into cells.…
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, UW Medicine, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Seattle Children’s today announced plans to explore restructuring their longtime relationship to accelerate a shared mission of advancing diagnosis, treatment and pioneering of cures for cancer and other diseases. If finalized and approved, the proposed restructure would establish an adult-focused oncology program and, separately, a pediatric oncology program.…
AVM Biotechnology, a clinical-stage company, announced today FDA permission to modify its ongoing clinical study, AVM0703-001, entitled “The WWRD Study: AVM0703 for Treatment of Leukemia or Lymphoma”. The initial protocol, a 3 x 3-based design, called for dose escalation of 3 mg/kg for each of the six cohorts, ranging from 6 mg/kg to 21 mg/kg, with a minimum of three…
Kineta Inc, through its subsidiary Kineta Chronic Pain LLC, announced today that the first participant has been successfully dosed in a Phase 1 multiple ascending dose (MAD) clinical trial of KCP506, an investigational, first-in-class α9α10 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) antagonist in development for the treatment of chronic neuropathic pain. The Phase 1, double blinded, placebo controlled, multiple ascending dose study…
Shigeru Kinoshita, MD, PhD, has joined the medical advisory board at Aurion Biotech, whose mission is to cure blindness by developing a differentiated platform of advanced therapies to treat ocular diseases. Professor Kinoshita is the inventor of Aurion Biotech’s lead candidate, cell therapy for the treatment of corneal endothelial disease. As a member of the company’s medical advisory board, he will…