Hello, my fellow allergy sufferers,

With pollen counts rising and allergy season well underway, this week’s news arrives just in time: Pfizer has had a nasty reaction to its CD47 bet, Big Pharma gets a whiff of Asia’s ageing wave, Switzerland’s biotech sector is positively blooming, Scarlet Therapeutics raises £3.2M, and McGill researchers zap peanuts with cold plasma – reducing their allergenicity by 69%.

Pass the antihistamines,

Dodo

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❌ Pfizer’s $2.3B bet ends in failure as CD47 blocker scrapped (Fierce Biotech): The 2021 Trillium acquisition handed Pfizer a pair of CD47 inhibitors – ontorpacept and maplirpacept – built on the rather appealing notion of teaching macrophages to gobble up cancer cells. Ontorpacept made it to a Phase 2 study for soft tissue cancers, but was binned last year. Maplirpacept has now followed suit, after Phase 1 and 2 trials in blood cancers; Pfizer state “these decisions are not due to safety concerns, regulatory requests, or any study conduct issues”.

Our take: CD47 has been a graveyard for acquisition capital. Pfizer's exit is the latest in a string of expensive lessons, and between Trillium and Gilead's Forty Seven, the class has absorbed over $7B in acquisition costs without a single approved drug. Whether this is because the underlying biology is simply too difficult – the receptor's expression on red blood cells causes anaemia, and cancer cells reliably upregulate alternative "don't eat me" signals – or simply because the right molecule hasn't been found yet, remains to be seen.

🧓🏻 Singapore gets Big Pharma rush to invest in plants for ageing region (Nikkei Asia): Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Novartis have collectively committed over $2.5B to expand manufacturing in Singapore. Pfizer has opened a new active pharmaceutical ingredients facility, AstraZeneca is building its first Singapore site dedicated to antibody drug conjugates, and Novartis is expanding an existing biopharmaceutical plant – all targeting a region where age-related disease burden is growing faster than anywhere else in the world.

Our take: Asia accounts for 49.2% of global cancer cases and 56.1% of cancer deaths – figures that will only swell as the region ages. Pharma has clocked a demographic wave that has been rolling in for decades and is scrambling to get its factories in front of it. The choice of Singapore is hardly surprising: tax advantages, political stability, robust IP protection and proximity to emerging markets make it a natural base for companies that need Asian supply chain resilience without geopolitical exposure.

📈 Swiss Biotech Report confirms the sector’s strong performance (Startupticker): Switzerland’s biotech sector posted record revenues of CHF 7.5B in 2025, with private company funding up 38% to a record CHF 1.15B. The sector now counts over 400 companies and 21,000 R&D staff (both records) while immunologicals – including therapeutic proteins, cell therapies, and vaccines – hit a record 20% share of Swiss exports. There was just one IPO, BioVersys, though it completed Europe’s largest listing of the year.

Our take: Globally, the number of biotech companies and R&D staff has fallen, but Switzerland’s have grown. Talent is likely the differentiator: foreign nationals account for 78% of Swiss unicorn founders, the majority of them STEM PhD graduates, resulting in a talent pool that is genuinely difficult to assemble elsewhere – and perhaps explains why selective investors keep returning.

🩸 Scarlet raises £3.2 million to advance lab-grown red blood cell therapies (European Biotechnology News): Unlike predecessors Rubius and Erytech, which relied on donor material, Scarlet Therapeutics grows RBCs from immortalised cell lines, sidestepping scalability and reproducibility constraints. A £3.2M seed round led by Eos Advisory will fund in vivo animal studies across hyperammonemia and hyperoxaluria, with preclinical data already showing its lab-grown cells circulate with a half-life comparable to donated blood.

Our take: The half-life data is interesting for reasons beyond survival duration. Because all of Scarlet’s cells are new, they expire in synchrony, meaning the therapeutic window is more predictable than with donated blood. For indications like hyperammonemia and hyperoxaluria, where RBCs are essentially deployed as circulating detox machines, that synchrony could translate into a considerably more predictable quarterly dosing model than donor-derived cells allow.

And finally…

🥜 Cold plasma could finally crack peanut allergies, making the nuts less allergenic (BioTechniques): McGill University researchers have shown that blasting peanut protein with ionised gas for 25 minutes reduces its immunoreactivity by 69%, without impacting the taste. The cold plasma treatment also improved digestibility and boosted foaming properties, which is handy for food manufacturing. The researchers reckon the approach could extend to eggs, hazelnuts, and other common allergens.

Our take: Peanut allergy has increased 3.5-fold over two decades, affects around 2% of Western populations, and has no cure. Every approved approach manages the patient: oral immunotherapy, omalizumab, strict avoidance. By contrast, cold plasma goes after the allergen itself, before it reaches the plate. The mechanism has already shown promise in soy, cow’s milk, and whey proteins.

Tune in 🎧

🛰️ The $100B Leak: Fixed From Space: AIRMO’s Daria Stepanova explains how a satellite constellation equipped with micro-lidars could detect methane and CO2 leaks in real time, tackling a $100B annual problem from orbit.

📊 UCB’s Candid buy, Grand Rounds and leukodystrophies: UCB has just paid $2B for one of the leading T-cell engager companies. BioCentury’s analysts dig into whether the price was justified, what it signals for the TCE space, and whether the IPO window is finally creaking open.

🫀 Can the CIA detect your heartbeat from 60km away?: Veritasium investigates the CIA’s rumoured “Ghost Murmur” technology, examining the science behind remote cardiac monitoring and whether the claims hold up.

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🔬 Senior Computational Biologist, Recursion: Fancy industrialising drug discovery from first principles? You’ll synthesise diverse biological datasets, build robust omics pipelines, and turn exploratory analyses into reusable tools that accelerate programmes.

🍺 Biotechnologist, Celtic Renewables: Keen to ferment something rather more planet-friendly than beer? You’ll run multi-stage ABE fermentation campaigns, collect and analyse plant samples, and keep a century-old process humming at commercial scale.

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🦠11–15.05 | PEGS Boston | Boston, USA: A flagship conference for protein and antibody engineering, immunotherapy, and AI-driven biologics – showcasing the tools and partnerships transforming drug discovery and development.

🚧 13.05 | Cybersecurity and clinical risk management in the era of AI | London, UK: Hosted by Royal Society of Medicine, this half-day event is for clinicians, healthcare leaders, and digital health professionals navigating AI's security and clinical risks – with practical guidance from NHS CCIOs on deploying it safely and compliantly.

👩‍🔬 13.05 | Women in Biotech | Macclesfield, UK: A BIA networking event for women in biotech – and their allies – exploring how leaders are navigating organisational change, building resilience, and driving transformation in a sector still emerging from a difficult few years.

🔬 19–21.05 | Bio-IT World Conference & Expo | Boston, USA: A 25-year-old flagship for biopharma, clinical research, and tech leaders – spotlighting informatics, data analytics, and AI-driven tools accelerating precision medicine and drug discovery.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my entomology enthusiasts,

This week, it’s a bug’s life as a creepy-crawly quarantine facility lands in York to shore up the UK’s biosecurity, saffron makes the leap from spice rack to retinal protection, Chiesi stings the US rare disease market with a $1.9bn acquisition, AstraZeneca warms back up to UK investment after a government sweetener, and a blueberry-sized brain implant buzzes into human trials for treatment-resistant depression.

Don’t let the bedbugs bite!

Dodo

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🐜 Insect quarantine unit to be launched at York biotech campus (The Press): Our friends up north are boosting the UK’s biosecurity capabilities with a new state-of-the-art Insect Quarantine Unit for Fera Science Ltd. The facility will support research into invasive invertebrate pests – the sort that chew through crops, ecosystems and biosecurity budgets. The 2,500 sq ft unit is designed to handle the kind of regulated work that requires rather more than a sealed jar and good intentions, with serious implications for food systems and environmental protection.

Our take: The UK has made plenty of noise about leading in crop science, from the Precision Breeding Act to post-EU regulatory divergence. Fera Science's work with DEFRA on invasive non-native species is more than mere research curiosity – after all, you can't set policy on pests you haven't properly studied! York's expanded facility is the unglamorous plumbing behind the UK's biosecurity ambitions, and with 10 to 12 invasive species turning up uninvited each year, more capacity is rather overdue.

🥸 Pharmactive Biotech highlights saffron extract’s clinical efficacy in boosting vision health (Nutrition Insight): Pharmactive has launched AffronEye, a saffron-derived ingredient aimed at retinal protection through antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic mechanisms. Preclinical data shows it shields retinal ganglion cells in glaucoma-like models, while delivery formats including liposomal lid mists and eyelid serums are designed to sidestep the compliance problems that plague traditional eye drops.

Our take: Pharmactive is betting that the future of eye wellness lies in ease of application. A natural botanical that feels more like skincare than medicine has clear appeal – in nutraceuticals, poor adherence is the silent killer of otherwise promising interventions, with many users dropping off after just a couple of weeks. Liposomal lid mists and eyelid serums directly address the friction points that make people disengage.

🤑 Chiesi in US$1.9bn deal to buy KalVista and its angioedema drug (European Biotechnology Magazine): Our pasta-loving pals at Chiesi are making their largest acquisition to date, snapping up US biotech KalVista Pharmaceuticals for $1.9bn. The centrepiece is Ekterly (sebetralstat), the first oral on-demand treatment for hereditary angioedema – a condition where existing options are largely injectable. Ekterly has already secured regulatory approval in the US, UK, Japan and EU, generating $49M in its first half-year on market.

Our take: KalVista is Chiesi’s second significant rare disease deal in three years, following the Amryt Pharma buyout in 2023 – with a €430M Milan manufacturing investment and an Arbor gene therapy partnership added for good measure. The methodical deal-making is worth noting: a family-owned company quietly assembling US commercial-stage assets while anchoring its manufacturing base at home, all in service of a €6bn revenue target by 2030.

🇬🇧 AstraZeneca makes surprise U-turn with £300m pharma investment in UK (The Guardian): AstraZeneca has reversed its UK investment freeze, unfreezing a paused £200m Cambridge expansion and committing £100m to a new “lab of the future” in Macclesfield. The U-turn follows months of fractious negotiations over NHS drug pricing and availability. A subsequent UK–US deal, trading tariff-free exports for improved NHS medicine access, appears to have broken the deadlock.

Our take: Since the UK–US pricing deal, £1.4bn in life sciences investment has rolled in from UCB, Bristol Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim and now AstraZeneca. The terms were straightforward enough: higher NHS drug spending and faster approvals in exchange for investment commitments. Whether this becomes the standard playbook – governments competing for pharma capital by loosening pricing and access conditions – is the rather larger question.

And finally…

🧠 A brain implant for depression is about to be tested in humans (Wired): Motif Neurotech has FDA approval to begin human trials of a blueberry-sized brain implant for treatment-resistant depression. The device targets the central executive network with frequent at-home electrical stimulation, with the company suggesting remission could be achievable within 10 days. Unlike Neuralink’s headline-grabbing communication-restoration work, Motif is aiming squarely at the third of depression patients who don’t respond to existing medication.

Our take: Treatment-resistant depression is a condition that current psychiatry has remarkably little to offer beyond palliation, and a device-based intervention is a meaningful shift. The longer-term implication is that recording-and-stimulating implants could move psychiatric diagnosis from patient self-report to neural telemetry – a significant epistemological change for a field built on subjective accounts, with real consequences for how depression is defined and treated.

Tune in 🎧

🫀 Diagonal Therapeutics’ innovative clustering antibodies for vascular diseases: Diagonal Therapeutics’ CSO Patrick Andre explains how the DIAGONAL platform targets TGF-β signalling, and what a $125M Series B means for rare vasculopathies and beyond.

💡 Implementing a new CEO strategy with NervGen’s Adam Rogers, M.D. and Rich Macary: NervGen's Adam Rogers and Rich Macary discuss NVG-291's path to Phase 3, FDA endpoint strategy, leadership shifts, a Nasdaq move, and the broader potential in neurotrauma.

🥶 The first environmental GE organism release – almost! Dr. Steven Lindow: Dr. Steven Lindow unpacks the pioneering work on ice-minus bacteria, early biotech breakthroughs, regulatory hurdles, and the technology’s evolving role in frost-sensitive agriculture.

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🤖 Business Lead, Life Sciences, OpenAI: Want to turn complex life sciences workflows into transformative partnerships? You'll manage a portfolio of strategic accounts, define market and buyer narratives, and translate deep scientific insight into commercial pathways.

🧑‍🔬 Manager, Life Sciences Strategy Consulting, Kx Advisors: Interested in running multiple client engagements while growing a team of consultants? You'll lead end-to-end project delivery, support business development, serve as a strategic thought partner, and connect teams, clients, and senior leadership.

🌍 Global Change Facilitator, BioPhorum: Passionate about turning cross-industry collaboration into real-world impact? You'll lead workstreams of senior biopharma experts, facilitate complex discussions, drive industry-shaping guidance and benchmarks, and combine structured thinking with project leadership.

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🦠11–15.05 | PEGS Boston | Boston, USA: A flagship conference for protein and antibody engineering, immunotherapy, and AI-driven biologics – showcasing the tools and partnerships transforming drug discovery and development.

🚧 13.05 | Cybersecurity and clinical risk management in the era of AI | Royal Society of Medicine, London, UK: A half-day event for clinicians, healthcare leaders, and digital health professionals navigating AI's security and clinical risks, with practical guidance from NHS CCIOs on deploying it safely and compliantly.

🔬19–21.05 | Bio-IT World Conference & Expo | Boston, USA: A 25-year-old flagship for biopharma, clinical research, and tech leaders – spotlighting informatics, data analytics, and AI-driven tools accelerating precision medicine and drug discovery.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello my fellow mavericks,

This week: Boehringer breaks ranks and builds its AI capabilities rather than buying them, OpenAI debuts a drug discovery model named after the woman who never got the credit she deserved, a Finnish startup defies the odds and pips Harvard and Stanford to a quantum biology prize, Formation Bio tears up the industry playbook to beat the real clinical bottleneck, and a bacterial enzyme goes rogue and writes DNA from its own amino acids.

Vive la révolution,

Dodo

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💂 Boehringer Ingelheim launches AI Accelerator in London (Boehringer Ingelheim): The new King’s Cross hub is the German pharma giant’s fourth computational AI centre and joins a roster of sites in Austria, Germany, and the US under a £150M 10-year investment. Plonked in the Knowledge Quarter alongside the Francis Crick Institute and the Alan Turing Institute, it will focus on patient journey mapping, biological mechanism discovery, and disease driver identification, with a goal of 50 AI experts in place by end of 2027.

Our take: Most pharma is busily snapping up AI capabilities – Novo Nordisk just partnered with OpenAI, Sanofi acquired Exscientia for $1.2B, and Lilly bet $2.75B on Insilico – but Boehringer is having a crack at the rather more patient business of building foundational capability from scratch. Fifty experts by 2027 and £15M a year is a modest opening wager but, if it pays off, the intellectual property and institutional knowledge stay firmly in-house.

🩻 OpenAI debuts AI model GPT-Rosalind to speed up drug discovery (TechTarget): Named after Rosalind Franklin – whose X-ray crystallography helped crack the structure of DNA – the new domain-specific model combines multi-step reasoning across chemistry, genomics, and protein engineering with access to more than 50 scientific tools and databases. Amgen, Moderna, and Thermo Fisher are among the early partners, though access is firmly gated behind a vetted trusted access programme.

Our take: OpenAI’s life sciences research lead Joy Jiao has been rather candid that GPT-Rosalind cannot invent new drugs on its own; it is a reasoning layer for hypothesis generation, literature synthesis, and experimental planning – nothing more. The limited access reflects genuine biosecurity concerns, but also (rather conveniently) positions the model as premium and exclusive at a moment when OpenAI is hungry for enterprise revenue. A fitting name – perhaps this time she'll get the credit she is owed.

⚛️ Helsinki’s Algorithmiq wins €1.7 million prize for quantum-enabled light-sensitive cancer drug discovery (EU-Startups): The sole winner of Wellcome Leap’s 2.5-year Quantum for Bio challenge, pipping finalists from Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford to the post, demonstrated a quantum-classical framework for simulating a photosensitiser drug currently in Phase 2 trials. The framework ran on up to 100 qubits on existing IBM hardware and was validated against state-of-the-art classical methods.

Our take: Quantum advantage in drug discovery has been a theoretical promise for the better part of two decades, consistently done in by hardware that couldn’t deliver it. Algorithmiq’s winning framework had to meet three simultaneous requirements: executable on current hardware, biologically meaningful, and validated against classical methods under realistic constraints. That last condition is the one the field has been dodging – passing it, on machines that actually exist, is no small thing.

🎯 This Sam Altman-backed $1.8 billion startup bets AI can get drugs through clinical trials faster (Forbes): Formation Bio has raised $615M to snap up stalled drug candidates and frogmarch them through clinical trials with AI. The New York startup targets pre-Phase 2 drugs, where only 30% succeed, arguing that clinical development rather than discovery is the industry’s real bottleneck. The company has already licensed one asset to Sanofi for $630M, with four more in trials. Backers include Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

Our take: Formation’s osteoarthritis drug had already been through three trials across 800 patients, without clear clinical evidence of impact, and was quietly gathering dust. AI didn’t discover anything new – it found signals in data that already existed, establishing that increased cartilage growth from the drug did in fact translate into a lower five-year risk of needing a knee replacement. That’s a rather different proposition from drug discovery AI: not generating new therapies, but rescuing value from ones that were close to being written off. If Formation can do that reliably at scale, the pipeline of abandoned post-Phase 1 assets starts to look rather less like a graveyard.

And finally…

🧬 Scientists stunned by ‘fundamentally new way’ life produces DNA (Science): Stanford researchers have discovered DRT3, a bacterial defence system harbouring an enzyme, Drt3b, that synthesises DNA without a nucleic acid template – instead, using its own amino acids as a guide. Widespread among bacteria, DRT3 appears to protect against viral infection, though precisely how it does so remains a mystery. The researchers hope it can be engineered into a tool for custom DNA synthesis.

Our take: Biology’s “central dogma” – that information flows from nucleic acids to protein, never the other way around – has held for decades. Drt3b doesn’t rewrite it exactly, but a protein serving as its own DNA template has no precedent in biology, and the researchers are candid that they don’t yet know how DRT3 actually defeats viruses. The CRISPR parallel is already being drawn. It, too, started as an obscure bacterial defence mechanism, with applications nobody had imagined.

Tune in 🎧

🎰 The medications that can trigger sex and gambling addictions: A BBC investigation into dopamine agonists examines how roughly 1 in 6 patients develop impulse control disorders, and why many were never warned of the risk.

🐺 Ancient Egyptian DNA, Cheddar Man and wolves as pets: Brian Cox and two ancient DNA specialists field listener questions on how far back genomic analysis can reach, and what early human genetic diversity tells us about survival.

☄️ The Hitchhiking Microbe’s Guide to the Galaxy: Researchers test the plausibility of lithopanspermia – the hypothesis that microbes hitchhike between planets on meteorites – by firing them from a gun to simulate the forces involved.

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🛠️ Development Engineer, Bespak: Want to put the device in drug delivery? You’ll support product design from concept to commercialisation, run CAD simulations, conduct NGI testing, and steer precision-moulded parts through performance and regulatory requirements.

💯 (Fixed Term) Analyst, Quality Control, Chemistry & Stability, Moderna: Can you keep mRNA vaccines in good shape? You’ll run HPLC, UPLC, and stability testing across the product lifecycle, manage LIMS workflows, and keep the brand-new Harwell facility audit-ready.

🧪 Research Scientist, Arthur Edward: Think you can coax microbes into industrial submission? You’ll develop and optimise cell culture processes from lab to pilot scale, apply strain engineering techniques, and drive tech transfer through to commercial manufacture.

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🏥 28.04 | The Future of Prevention: Who Pays, Who Delivers, Who Benefits? | London, UK: A closed-door forum bringing together senior NHS, government, healthtech, and employer leaders to tackle the UK’s prevention agenda – from funding models to delivery at scale. Hosted by SomX (that’s us!) and Neko Health.

🇰🇷 29.04 | Bio Korea 2026 | Seoul, South Korea: One of Asia’s leading life sciences gatherings, bringing together biopharma, biotech, and healthtech leaders for partnering, investment, and industry dialogue.

👮13.05 | Cybersecurity and clinical risk management in the era of AI | Royal Society of Medicine, London, UK: A half-day event for clinicians, healthcare leaders, and digital health professionals navigating AI's security and clinical risks with practical guidance from NHS CCIOs on deploying it safely and compliantly.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my nauseous friends,

This week’s roundup has plenty to digest: scientists are taking on “undruggable” disease proteins, pharma backs away from big biotech deals as patent cliffs loom, the UK launches a sovereign AI fund to anchor homegrown biotech talent, Spain eyes Boston for its biotech expansion, and a new study reveals genetic clues to predict severe pregnancy sickness before it strikes.

If that doesn’t settle the stomach, nothing will!

Dodo

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🤑 Biotech startup Neomorph raises $100M to crack the “undruggable” protein problem with molecular glue technology (Tech Startups): For decades, countless disease-driving proteins have been deemed “undruggable”. San Diego biotech Neomorph has raised a $100M Series B to advance molecular glue degraders – compounds that, instead of blocking a protein, bring it into contact with the cell’s natural disposal system to mark it for breakdown. Its lead programme, NEO-811, is now in Phase 1/2 for kidney cancer, with Novo Nordisk, Biogen, and AbbVie among its pharma partners.

Our take: Molecular glue degraders may be scientifically sexy, but nobody’s quite sure where they sit in the regulatory canon. These compounds don’t behave like conventional inhibitors or activators, which means the FDA’s existing frameworks don’t map cleanly onto them – and only a handful have received approval to date. NEO-811’s Phase 1/2 readouts will do more than prove the drug: they’ll help establish what the regulatory bar for this class actually looks like.

🤏 Big pharma is thinking small on deals. That’s a boon for biotech (WSJ): Pharma’s appetite for biotech is stronger than ever, but it’s practising portion control. After an era of megadeals like AbbVie–Allergan and Pfizer–Seagen, pharma is now favouring “bolt-ons”: smaller, strategic acquisitions in the low billions. With nearly half of Big Pharma’s $700B annual revenue facing patent cliffs by 2031, deal sizes may be trimmed – but 2026 is on pace for a record number of them.

Our take: For small and mid-cap biotechs, this is the environment that matters: more acquirers, reasonable valuations, and capital flowing back through the ecosystem rather than pooling in one place. But with a hefty chunk of Big Pharma’s income expiring alongside its patents, it’s clear that its pipelines need refilling. The interesting question is whether pharma will maintain its current discipline as that 2031 deadline approaches, or whether desperation will drive it back to the megadeal.

🤖 AI firms pioneering drug discovery, cheaper supercomputing, and more get first backing through UK’s Sovereign AI (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology): The UK has decided it doesn’t want to just use AI, it wants to own it. Enter Sovereign AI, a £500M state-backed, VC-style unit designed to anchor the country’s most promising AI startups – and their economic value – on British soil. First cheque goes to AI infrastructure startup Callosum, with biotechs Twig Bio and Prima Mente among six further companies receiving supercomputing access, visa fast-tracks, and early access to government procurement.

Our take: This is the state playing venture capitalist – and rather enjoying it! Several of these companies already have US operations, so the question Sovereign AI is really trying to answer isn’t whether founders stay in the UK, but whether the economic value they create does. By bundling capital, compute, talent access, and state leverage (and taking right of first refusal on future funding rounds), the UK is betting it can keep the economic upside – jobs, tax revenue, and strategic capability – here, rather than abroad.

🇪🇸 Spain sets up Boston-focused VC fund with goal of raising $200M for biotechs (Fierce Biotech): Spain is taking its biotech ambitions overseas. Backed by $57M from the Spanish government, the new VC fund will let private investors help Spanish drug developers tap into Boston’s world‑class life sciences ecosystem. The initiative will also establish Spain’s eighth US trade office in Boston and encourage joint R&D and co‑investment projects.

Our take: Boston is sitting on 28% lab vacancy rates and 4,600 job losses, and Spain – whose economy grew 2.8% last year – has clearly been paying attention, moving in precisely when Boston is vulnerable. The deeper ambition (one suspects) is to embed Spanish biotechs into Boston’s infrastructure before they get absorbed by it, reversing the age-old story of promising European companies lost to US acquisition.

And finally…

🫄 Pregnancy sickness study identifies new genetic links (GEN): USC scientists have identified ten genes linked to hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), the severe pregnancy sickness that hospitalises 2% of women – six of them previously unknown. The team previously established that HG is driven by hypersensitivity to GDF15, a hormone that surges in early pregnancy. Their latest multi-ancestry GWAS of over 10,000 cases points to appetite, insulin signalling, and brain plasticity as further mechanisms.

Our take: Zofran, the most effective current treatment, still fails around half of patients – and severe cases can lead to pregnancy termination, depression, and lasting maternal morbidity. Genetic screening before pregnancy could change that calculus entirely, identifying hypersensitive women before symptoms strike rather than after. For a condition dismissed as psychological for decades, prevention (rather than damage control) would be a small mercy.

Tune in 🎧

💊 Biosimilars and complex medicines for all with RNA therapeutics’ Sarfaraz Niazi, PhD: Dr. Niazi unpacks how US biosimilar regulation evolved from early FDA hesitation to citizen petitions and landmark lawsuits.

💩 Tuning, rather than blocking, immunity in IBD: CEO Marc de Garidel traces a drug's unlikely journey – from a shelved HIV candidate to a late-stage IBD treatment offering longer-lasting remission.

🦠 Multi-agent AI delivers reliable and scalable insights for single-cell omics: Parashar Dhapola, co-founder and CEO of Nygen Analytics, on how advanced algorithms are changing the analysis of millions of cells in real time.

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🥼 Department Lead Scientific Communications, BioNTech: Ready to shape how cutting-edge science reaches the world? Build and lead a global team overseeing publications, data strategy, and scientific storytelling across BioNTech’s portfolio – from early development through to commercialisation.

🧑‍⚕️ Manager - Life Sciences and Healthcare, Sia: Deep knowledge of EU and UK grant ecosystems? Lead strategy, capture, and delivery of public and philanthropic funding across programmes including Horizon Europe, HERA, Innovate UK, and Wellcome.

🧬 Territory Account Manager, Illumina: Passionate about genomics and business growth? Expand Illumina’s portfolio across hospitals, universities, and biopharma clients, driving account growth and identifying new opportunities.

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🌱 21.04 | BioSolutions UK | London, UK: Hosted by the BIA, this London event brings together startups, investors, and policymakers to explore how engineering biology is shaping the future bioeconomy.

🏥 28.04 | The Future of Prevention: Who Pays, Who Delivers, Who Benefits? | London, UK: A closed-door forum bringing together senior NHS, government, healthtech, and employer leaders to tackle the UK’s prevention agenda – from funding models to delivery at scale. Hosted by SomX (that’s us!) and Neko Health.

🇰🇷 29.04 | Bio Korea 2026 | Seoul, South Korea: One of Asia’s leading life sciences gatherings, bringing together biopharma, biotech, and healthtech leaders for partnering, investment, and industry dialogue.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Houston, we have a newsletter,

This week, a sugar matrix finally launches vaccines that can bypass the cold chain, MethylScan detects cancer and liver disease for less than the cost of an in-flight meal, Anthropic pays $400M to pull 8 months of stealth biology into its orbit, FebriDx clears for takeoff in 300,000 US outpatient clinics to curb unnecessary antibiotic prescribing, and human cells head to the moon to see how they hold up beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

Mission control, Dodo is over and out.

If there’s anything you’d like to see in future editions of Biotech Dodo, send us a message.

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💉 New drying technique stabilises vital vaccines at room temperature (News Medical): Oxford engineers have validated MART, a room-temperature drying technique that locks proteins into a stable sugar-based matrix on cellulose fibres, neatly sidestepping the freezing that typically does for sensitive biologics. The process takes as little as 3hrs and requires no specialist equipment. Tested across four targets, including COVID-19 diagnostic reagents and growth factors, dried samples retained over 90% of their activity after 6 months at 25°C.

Our take: Cold chain failures waste billions of dollars’ worth of vaccines annually, with a human cost borne by children in regions like sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where cold chain infrastructure simply isn’t up to scratch. The problem has been thoroughly catalogued for decades and thoroughly not cracked. MART takes just a few hours and requires no specialist kit. For low-resource settings, the most useful tech is the one that actually makes it off the lorry.

🩸 Low-cost, single sample blood test detects different cancers, liver disorders, and other diseases (GEN): UCLA scientists have developed MethylScan, a blood test that reads DNA methylation patterns in cell-free DNA to sniff out multiple cancers, liver conditions, and organ abnormalities from a single sample. The method works by enzymatically stripping out background DNA from blood cells before sequencing. Across 1,061 patients, it achieved 63% overall cancer detection and 55% for early-stage disease, with 98% specificity, and a projected cost under $20 per sample.

Our take: Galleri, the market leader in multi-cancer detection, costs $949 and isn’t covered by most insurers. MethylScan’s rather more interesting trick is correctly classifying 85% of liver disease patients by type from the same blood draw, distinguishing viral hepatitis from metabolic disease without so much as a biopsy. At 55% early-stage sensitivity, it isn’t miles ahead of Galleri at 51% – suggesting detection is now the unsolved problem, not affordability.

💰 AI giant Anthropic leans into life sciences with $400M Coefficient Bio catch (BioSpace): The all-stock deal folds fewer than 10 people into Anthropic’s healthcare division, bolstering Claude Life Sciences – its biopharma-focused AI platform already used by Sanofi, Novo Nordisk, and AbbVie. Coefficient was founded just eight months ago by Nathan Frey and Samuel Stanton, both from Genentech’s Prescient Design computational drug discovery unit, and had been operating entirely in stealth.

Our take: That much money for an eight-month-old company with no disclosed product raises an eyebrow until you clock what Frey and Stanton built at Genentech – not AI wrappers bolted onto biology, but biological foundation models and protein design infrastructure from the architecture up. That calibre of talent is scarce, and Anthropic’s head of healthcare wants a meaningful percentage of all life science work running on Claude.

🪄 Lumos to access $1b US market with diagnostic device, raises $20m (The Australian): Australian diagnostics company Lumos has secured a CLIA waiver for FebriDx, its point-of-care test that distinguishes viral from bacterial respiratory infections. Previously confined to hospitals and laboratories, the waiver unlocks more than 300,000 outpatient locations, including physician offices, urgent care clinics, and pharmacy settings. The company has raised $20M to fund the US commercial rollout.

Our take: Antibiotic stewardship has spent decades drilling hospitals – the setting that accounts for a minority of prescribing. The bulk of inappropriate prescribing happens in outpatient settings where a clinician has minutes, no diagnostics, and a patient expecting a prescription. A CLIA waiver means FebriDx can now reach the GP surgeries and the pharmacy, the places unintentionally doing a lot of AMR damage.

And finally…

🚀 How NASA’s moon mission could help transform space medicine (Scientific American): NASA’s Artemis II mission is carrying AVATAR, an experiment using organs-on-a-chip – flash-drive-sized devices lined with living human cells that mimic specific organs. The chips contain bone marrow cells from the four Artemis II astronauts, matched against identical chips on Earth. After the mission, single-cell RNA sequencing will measure gene-level changes caused by deep space radiation and microgravity.

Our take: Organs-on-a-chip already sit in 17 of 25 top biopharma companies’ labs, valued for generating human biological data that animal models routinely get wrong. Deep space radiation and microgravity accelerate bone loss, suppress immunity, and damage DNA in ways that mirror accelerated disease states on Earth. That data, collected from astronauts’ own cells against matched Earth controls, is territory no laboratory has reached before.

Tune in 🎧

💊Novartis Buys Excellergy for $2B, Anthropic Vs. Pentagon, The Mansion Section: A condensed cut of TBPN’s live tech coverage, touching on Novartis’s latest acquisition, Anthropic’s Pentagon tensions, and real estate.

🩸This Startup Wants To Catch Cancer Before It Spreads: BillionToOne’s David Tsao and Oguzhan Atay trace the company’s path from prenatal cfDNA screening to early cancer detection, and what a $4B valuation means for the field.

🌕13 Minutes Presents: Artemis II: Tim Peake and Maggie Aderin-Pocock cover NASA’s first crewed lunar mission in over 50 years, with updates from Kennedy Space Centre and context on the geopolitics driving the new space race.

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🔬 Entry Level - Clinical Research Associate, Medspace: New to clinical research? You’ll conduct site monitoring visits, verify source data against case report forms, review regulatory documents, and keep adverse event reporting on the right side of GCP.

💼 Head of R&D and Scientific Strategy, Rare Disease, Syneos Health: Keen to shape the scientific direction of a global CRO? Reporting to the CSO, you’ll lead cross-functional initiatives, drive thought leadership strategy, and represent rare disease capabilities in front of customers and C-suite.

🧪 Biotech Application Scientist, Axitan Research UK: Got a nose for formulation science? You’ll translate R&D concepts into scalable feed additive products across poultry, swine, and aquaculture, optimise performance at pilot scale, and feed findings into IP filings.

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🇮🇹 16-17.04 | 16th International Conference on Biotechnology | Rome, Italy: Under the theme “Living Technologies for a Changing World: The Future Begins in Biotechnology,” this global meeting celebrates innovation where biology meets imagination, exploring how living systems can heal, adapt, and drive sustainable transformation across health, energy, and the environment.

💊 16.04 | Frontier Biotech Tables: From Signal to Drug | London, UK: This gathering unites biotech founders, frontier researchers, pharma dealmakers, and investors to dissect what’s really holding back translation, and how to unlock the next generation of ageing therapeutics.

🌱 21.04 | BioSolutions UK | London, UK: Discover how biology is driving real-world solutions to global challenges, and be part of the conversation that’s transforming the future of our planet. Whether you’re a startup, scale-up, investor, industrial leader, or policymaker, there’s something for everyone.

📑 29.04 | The Hardian Health Tech Summit | London, UK: The Hardian team will be joined by representatives from the MHRA, FDA, NICE, NHS leaders, and more across the healthtech world for real-world insight into regulation and market access in medical devices.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my fellow detectives,

This week: Lilly splashes out $7.8bn on a narcolepsy biotech, Blackstone closes the largest life science private fund in history, Amsterdam researchers deliver a patriarchy-smashing anatomical breakthrough, lab gloves have been found to contaminate microplastic samples, and psychedelic startups are under fire for some rather questionable YouTube videos.

Don’t touch anything!

Dodo

If there’s anything you’d like to see in future editions of Biotech Dodo, send us a message.

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💰Eli Lilly outlays $7.8bn to acquire sleep drug biotech Centessa (Pharmaceutical Technology): Eli Lilly is betting big on neuroscience, with a multi-billion-dollar move to acquire Cambridge-based Centessa Pharmaceuticals. The deal hands Lilly full ownership of cleminorexton, an orexin receptor 2 agonist targeting narcolepsy and other sleep-wake disorders. The drug has already posted strong Phase II results across narcolepsy types 1 and 2 and idiopathic hypersomnia.

Our take: Orexin receptor 2 agonists sit at the top of the sleep-wake hierarchy – addressing the root cause rather than papering over symptoms downstream. Narcolepsy alone is set to exceed 760,000 diagnosed cases across major markets by 2029, and cleminorexton's breadth across sleep-wake indications gives Lilly unusual optionality. For a field that has long struggled to move beyond symptom management, that's worth paying for.

🤑 Blackstone closes $6.3B fund for life sciences investing (BioPharma Dive): Blackstone has closed the largest life sciences private fund in history, roughly 40% bigger than its previous vehicle. With $15 billion in assets under management – and 34 approved medicines and devices – recent investments span gut disease, cancer, and cardiovascular medicine across partners including Teva, Merck, J&J, and Novartis.

Our take: Blackstone’s 86% approval rate for late-stage assets, well above the industry average, suggests a selection discipline that venture capital has struggled to replicate at scale. It’s that track record which makes this shift credible: private equity is now stepping in as the financing layer for late-stage assets that VC finds too capital-intensive, and pharma finds too risky to acquire outright.

♀️Full network of clitoral nerves mapped out for first time (The Guardian): Amsterdam researchers have produced the first-ever 3D map of the clitoral nerve network. The findings could reshape pelvic reconstructive surgery – improving outcomes in FGM repair and vulvar cancer procedures – while raising uncomfortable questions about how one of the body's most complex sensory organs stayed under-researched for so long.

Our take: The clitoral mapping project is a reminder of how thoroughly medical research has neglected female anatomy. The fact that it took nearly three decades after the penile nerve map to achieve equivalent knowledge for the clitoris is a direct reflection of how cultural discomfort and institutional bias have shaped research priorities. It also turns out some of what surgeons have been taught about clitoral anatomy is simply wrong. This new map doesn’t just fill a gap – it corrects the record.

🧤Contamination from lab gloves casts doubt on microplastics crisis (The Times): Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that standard laboratory gloves shed microscopic stearate salts that are virtually indistinguishable from polyethylene under common spectroscopy tests – producing false positives of up to 2,000 particles per square millimetre. It turns out the tools used to detect microplastic contamination have, in fact, been contributing to it!

Our take: Over the past decade, the “microplastics economy” has attracted billions in grants, consulting contracts, and testing technology – all built on data that may have been systematically inflated by the very gloves used to collect it. It's the latest in a series of methodological challenges to the field's most headline-grabbing findings, and the question of which results can still be trusted is becoming harder to avoid. It seems some housekeeping – or rather, lab-keeping – is in order.

And finally…

🧠 Psychedelic biotechs face scrutiny over YouTube promos (STAT): Psychedelic startups Helus Pharma and AtaiBeckley are facing backlash over paid YouTube videos making extraordinary claims about their experimental mental health drugs – including “100% patient improvement,” “rewiring the brain,” and an “FDA golden ticket,” all pinned to Phase 2 data. The videos – paid for by third-party marketing agencies on behalf of both companies – were disclosed, somewhat optimistically, as being for “informational purposes only.”

Our take: Psychedelics have spent years clawing toward mainstream medical acceptance, and both companies are hoping to attract pharma interest. Pinning such bold claims to Phase 2 data – the stage at which trials exist specifically to stress-test such numbers – hands critics exactly the ammunition they’ve been waiting for. Big pharma due diligence teams are not known for their enthusiasm toward targets whose marketing agencies are running ahead of the science.

Tune in 🎧

🦀 Investing in early-stage oncology with Yosemite’s Dan McHugh: Dan discusses how Yosemite backs early oncology science through unrestricted academic grants – and why that model produces better drug discovery than traditional VC.

🧬 HaemaLogiX - precision immunotherapy for multiple myeloma: Dr Rosanne Dunn on the company’s antibody approach to multiple myeloma and plasma cell disorders, and what sets it apart from existing treatments.

🦠 Identity crises, 1 mission: From broken shoulder to biotech career: Dr Nicole Paulk shares her unlikely path from the Pacific Northwest to leading AAV-based immunogene therapy for solid tumours.

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A trio of account manager roles this week - what a treat!

🧑‍🔬 Account Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific: Got a knack for building relationships in science? Drive growth across CMD products, support customer partnerships, and help deliver solutions across health, environmental protection, and food safety.

🤖 Senior Account Manager, Global AI and Technology, Oxford PharmaGenesis: Keen to shape how AI gets embedded in medical communications? Lead digital and tech projects, develop new tools, and mentor teams across global accounts.

🌍 Global Strategic Account Manager, Cytiva: Ready to work at the intersection of pharma and strategy? Partner with senior account directors to execute complex global strategies, lead governance meetings, and manage cross-functional programmes – with a clear pathway toward account leadership.

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🇮🇹 16-17.04 | 16th International Conference on Biotechnology | Rome, Italy: Under the theme “Living Technologies for a Changing World: The Future Begins in Biotechnology,” this global meeting celebrates innovation where biology meets imagination, exploring how living systems can heal, adapt, and drive sustainable transformation across health, energy, and the environment.

💊 16.04 | Frontier Biotech Tables: From Signal to Drug | London, UK: This gathering unites biotech founders, frontier researchers, pharma dealmakers, and investors to dissect what’s really holding back translation, and how to unlock the next generation of ageing therapeutics.

🌱 21.04 | BioSolutions UK | London, UK: Discover how biology is driving real-world solutions to global challenges, and be part of the conversation that’s transforming the future of our planet. Whether you’re a startup, scale-up, investor, industrial leader, or policymaker, there’s something for everyone.

📑 29.04 | The Hardian Health Tech Summit | London, UK: The Hardian team will be joined by representatives from the MHRA, FDA, NICE, NHS leaders, and more across the healthtech world for real-world insight into regulation and market access in medical devices.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hi there, my fellow latecomers,

This week, several things that probably should have happened sooner. Data tracking on drug websites lands in court, tumours turn out to have been signalling their location all along, a new antibody goes after amyloid deposits already sitting in the heart, Oryon bets on fully differentiated neurons over the progenitor cells most rivals favour, and a prostate cancer test finally folds ethnicity into the diagnostic equation.

Better late than never,

Dodo

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⚖️ Patient sues Novartis, claiming data-tracking privacy breach (pharmaphorum): A Vermont cancer patient alleges Novartis’s Kisqali product website used tracking pixels to share her private health information with Google and ContentSquare without her consent. The data – inferred from her site visit and savings card application – promptly landed her targeted adverts related to her condition. The complaint, which names trackers on five Novartis product websites, targets violations of HIPAA and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

Our take: Most pixel-tracking litigation has focused on health systems, pharmacies, and prescription platforms – all HIPAA-covered entities. Novartis sits outside that framework, which is jolly convenient (until it isn’t). Its product websites aren’t bound by the same rules, yet a visit to a breast cancer drug page is arguably a key diagnostic tell. Now that a suitably prominent defendant has arrived, it might be time to test state privacy laws and close the federal loophole.

🦠 Immunotherapy for solid tumours enhanced by metabolite-sensing receptors (GEN): Stanford researchers have equipped NK and T cells with tumour-homing G-protein coupled receptors (thGPRs) that recognise metabolites released by proliferating cancer cells – including phospholipids, fatty acids, and cholesterol derivatives – and use them as a homing signal. In mouse models of breast and ovarian cancer, the engineered cells navigated directly to tumours, markedly improving control and survival.

Our take: CAR-T’s exhaustion problem has long dominated the field, but this research reframes solid tumour failure as partly a navigation problem. Cancer cells release metabolites as a byproduct of rapid proliferation, and those same metabolites recruit immunosuppressive cells that shield the tumour from attack. Stanford’s lot have engineered killer cells to follow those metabolites directly into the tumour instead. Maybe the answer to CAR-T exhaustion in solid tumours was never about endurance – just better directions.

🫀 UK biotech co-founded by Nobel laureate secures $86M for antibody program (Endpoints): Cambridge-based Immutrin is having a crack at a gap that no approved therapy has yet managed to fill – clearing amyloid deposits already lodged in the hearts of cardiomyopathy patients. The company was co-founded by Professor Daniel Christ, Sir Mark Pepys, whose research underpins the approach, and Sir Gregory Winter, whose Nobel-winning phage display technique was used to precisely engineer the lead antibody. The Series A will fund proof-of-concept trials.

Our take: Currently, approved treatments for this type of amyloidosis cardiomyopathy – stabilisers like Vyndaqel and Attruby, silencers like vutrisiran – work upstream, preventing new fibrils from forming. None of them touch what's already lodged in the heart. Immutrin's antibody recruits the immune system to clear existing deposits, opening the tantalising possibility of reversing damage rather than merely arresting it. If combined, treatment could become a two-pronged attack.

🧠 Oryon shines out of stealth with $21M to fight Parkinson’s disease (Fierce Biotech): Massachusetts-based biotech has closed its Series A, bringing total funding to $42M, for its stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s. Rather than the progenitor cells favoured by most rivals, Oryon uses the patient’s own stem cells to grow fully differentiated A9 neurons – the dopamine-producing cells whose degeneration drives Parkinson’s motor symptoms. Five patients in an ongoing Phase 1b/2a trial have shown motor score improvements ranging from 29% to 62% above baseline, six to 18 months after treatment.

Our take: Deriving neurons from a patient’s own cells sidesteps immunosuppression entirely – an advantage the allogeneic lot can’t claim. Five patients is a slim cohort, but the unilateral approach quietly does something useful: treating only one side of the brain creates a within-patient control, allowing dopamine restoration and motor recovery to be tracked against the untreated hemisphere. That unilateral treatment is already comparing favourably with bilateral approaches makes the next cohort worth watching.

And finally…

🍑 Trinity Biotech announces successful clinical results for its enhanced EpiCapture™ prostate cancer test (Yahoo): The Dublin-based company has reported an AUC of 85% for an enhanced version of its EpiCapture urine liquid biopsy test for aggressive prostate cancer, validated across 750 patient samples. The upgraded test incorporates a machine learning algorithm that factors in patient ethnicity alongside DNA biomarkers – the first prostate cancer diagnostic to do so. Commercialisation is planned through Trinity's New York reference laboratory.

Our take: Black men die from prostate cancer at twice the rate of white men, in part because prostate-specific antigen (PSA) thresholds in clinical guidelines were calibrated against white populations with naturally lower baseline levels – meaning the same score can mask meaningfully different levels of risk, depending on the patient. Most diagnostics treat ethnicity as a confounding variable to smooth away. Accounting for it meaningfully in clinical decision-making is long overdue.

Tune in 🎧

🎗️ How Evolution is Shaping Cancer Research: Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the science behind some of the most promising projects Cancer Research UK is currently supporting, from early detection to novel therapeutics.

🤖 NHSE’s tough message on tech: Tech sits at the heart of the government's 10-Year Health Plan, but NHS England has warned that a leadership void is slowing delivery across everything from EPR rollouts to AI adoption.

👩🏻‍💻 The Future of Tech Transfer: News roundup with NIH funding shifts, plus insights from Heather Steinman and Carole Burns on the future of tech transfer and commercialising research.

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🤝 Scientific Consultant, Genedata: Like helping scientists make sense of messy data? Guide biopharma teams using the Genedata Screener, blending science, tech, and project work to shape how biological data is analysed and applied.

🎬 Director, Competitive Intelligence, Envision Pharma: Got a sharp eye for pharma strategy? Lead high-value intelligence projects, build senior client relationships, and turn insights into growth across biotech and pharma accounts.

🧪 Chief Scientist – IHC & FISH, Leica Biosystems: Expert in tissue diagnostics? Set scientific direction across IHC and FISH, driving innovation, assay development, and translational strategy in advanced pathology technologies.

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🇮🇹 16-17.04 | 16th International Conference on Biotechnology | Rome, Italy: A global gathering exploring how living systems can address challenges across health, energy, and the environment, from novel therapeutics to sustainable industrial applications.

🌱 21.04 | BioSolutions UK | London, UK: Hosted by the BIA, this London event brings together startups, investors, and policymakers to explore how engineering biology is shaping the future bioeconomy.

📑 29.04 | The Hardian Health Tech Summit | London, UK: Regulators from the MHRA, FDA, and NICE join NHS leaders and industry professionals for real-world insight into regulation and market access in medical devices.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my bespectacled friends!

This week: AI-powered smart glasses are showing promise in slowing cognitive decline among dementia patients, the era of Chinese biotech bargains appears to be ending, RFK Jr.’s controversial plans to alter childhood vaccine schedules have come to a halt, a multimillion-pound investment is backing a new treatment for rare kidney disease, and experts are calling for the inclusion of pregnant women in clinical trials to avoid repeating the mistakes of the thalidomide era.

See you next week!

Dodo

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🤓 AI software for smart glasses wins £1m prize for technology to help people with dementia (The Guardian): A UK startup has bagged the Longitude Prize on Dementia for CrossSense: AI-enabled smart glasses with a “chatty” cognitive assistant, ‘Wispy’. Equipped with a camera, mic, and speakers, the glasses offer prompts, floating text, and friendly conversation to guide wearers through everyday life. In trials at the University of Sussex, participants identified 82% of objects correctly with the glasses, versus 46% without. Nifty!

Our take: The fact that memory gains persist once the specs come off suggests CrossSense may lean closer to neuro-rehabilitation than mere assistive tech. But the real test is still to come. A four-week in-home pilot is planned for late 2026, and larger controlled trials are needed to prove meaningful real-world benefit. With a one-hour battery life, subscription costs, and data privacy concerns still unresolved, the challenge now shifts from a clever prototype to something people will actually use day-to-day.

🇨🇳 As Chinese biotechs recognise their value, the bargain era may be over (PharmaVoice): China’s biotechs are exiting the discount aisle and discovering their true value. Licensing deals jumped to 92 in 2025, with average upfront payments soaring from $102M to $141M, signalling global pharma giants like GSK, AstraZeneca, and Lilly now see real value in Chinese pipelines. Blockbuster deals, like GSK’s $500M upfront for Hengrui’s COPD/oncology assets, prove Big Pharma still dominates.

Our take: China isn’t just producing better assets, it’s producing more of them than the market can comfortably absorb. In crowded areas like oncology and cell therapy, global pharma now has a surplus of similar bets to choose from, leaving a growing backlog of unpartnered programmes. For those companies, the choice is stark: build late-stage muscle or shelve viable programmes. But while China’s faster, lower-cost domestic trials offer a clear advantage, without deep experience in late-stage development, many promising assets could still stall before reaching market.

🧑‍⚖️ Judge blocks RFK Jr’s changes to US childhood vaccine schedule (BBC News): A federal judge has slammed the brakes on RFK Jr’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) vaccine overhaul, including blocking changes in regulations which would cut childhood shots from 17 to 11. Medical groups cheered the result as a win for science over politics, with the ruling citing “procedural failures” and “bypassed” expertise. The case was brought by the American Academy of Paediatrics, which argued that RFK JR’s actions violated Federal Law. The Trump admin is expected to appeal amid chaos for parents, insurers, and docs.

Our take: Kennedy’s attempt to cut the schedule and sidestep the usual advisory process has been blocked, returning vaccine guidance to the standard CDC framework. But it’s also exposed the limits of that system. States already hold the legal authority to diverge, and some are signalling they’re willing to use it to counter federal instability. The result isn’t fragmentation (yet!), but the conditions for it are starting to fall into place.

🫘 R1 starts up with $78M, aiming for a better kidney drug (BioPharma Dive): The Series A funding to aims fix hyperphosphatemia, a challenging complication of dialysis where excess phosphorus ravages bones and hearts. The therapy AP306, licensed from China’s Alebund, blocks multiple gut phosphate transporters for steadier control. Current binders such as Renvela and Xphozah demand handfuls of tablets per meal, leaving nephrologists juggling pill fatigue, adherence issues, and frustrated dieticians.

Our take: Phosphate binders like Renvela haven’t just dominated the market, they’ve defined it. Cheap generics, predictable behaviour, and seamless reimbursement have hardwired prescribing habits. And AP306’s “lower pill burden” is less transformative than it sounds, as it still requires three-times-daily dosing. This therefore isn’t a science problem, it’s a switching problem. Unless the therapy delivers a step-change in outcomes, nephrologists have little reason to abandon what already works.

And finally…

🫄‘Test drugs on pregnant women to stop another thalidomide scandal’ (The Times): Pregnant women are shut out of 99% of clinical trials, leaving doctors data-blind on vital medicines like antidepressants and prompting many mums-to-be to stop treatment, risking postnatal depression and suicide. The British Pharmacological Society is calling for more inclusive research, including “pregnancy and breastfeeding investigation plans” within the medicines licensing framework, so decisions about medicines can be evidence-based and better balance maternal benefit with foetal and infant risk.

Our take: MHRA, FDA, and EMA liability frameworks treat pregnancy as a high-risk category, with the threat of post-trial litigation making sponsors understandably cautious. The result is a system that protects foetuses from research, but leaves mothers exposed to guesswork. With most drugs untested in pregnancy, women are forced to choose between untreated illness and uncertain risk. The bigger failure isn’t including pregnant women in trials, it’s excluding them for so long.

Tune in 🎧

💡How to optimise your biotech company for partnering, licensing, and business success: Janita Good shares her expert insights on how biotech leaders can plan commercialisation from day one, and balance investor optimism with deal realism.

🧑‍🔬How bench scientists are getting ahead with AI: RNA biologist and bench scientist Heather Karner reveals how practical AI tools are reshaping lab life.

🦀 Radiotherapeutics for CNS cancers with plus therapeutics’: Dr. Marc Hedrick discusses the company’s strategic pivot to radiotherapeutics for brain cancers, as well as the science behind its lead candidate Reyobiq.

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🧫 Account Manager, Thermo Fisher: Love building relationships that fuel scientific progress? You’ll lead commercial activities across key accounts, sell and support Thermo Fisher’s full CMD portfolio, and drive strategic growth through collaboration.

💊 Consultant or Senior Consultant, Pharma & Life Sciences, Baringa: Want to help redefine how medicines reach patients? You’ll advise clients from R&D to commercialisation, designing global operating models, launching brands, and enabling data and AI transformation.

🌍 Global Life Sciences Business Developer, Promptly Health: Excited by the rise of real-world data? You’ll scout and qualify new opportunities across RWE, HEOR, Market Access, and Digital teams, shaping early engagement for complex enterprise deals.

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🧬 26.03 | The CGT Circle | London, UK: A networking event dedicated to the cell and gene therapy community. Designed to spark conversation and new connections, it brings together scientists, founders, and industry professionals working at the forefront of advanced therapies.

🇮🇹 16-17.04 | 16th International Conference on Biotechnology | Rome, Italy: Under the theme “Living Technologies for a Changing World: The Future Begins in Biotechnology,” this global meeting celebrates innovation where biology meets imagination, exploring how living systems can heal, adapt, and drive sustainable transformation across health, energy, and the environment.

📑 29.04 | The Hardian Health Tech Summit | London, UK: The Hardian team will be joined by representatives from the MHRA, FDA, NICE, NHS leaders, and more across the healthtech world for real-world insight into regulation and market access in medical devices.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my fellow scientific sorcerers,

This week: BioNTech’s founders are planning a fresh mRNA venture, MiniMed unveils a new pump and sensor pairing to smooth glucose control, Ipsen’s cancer drug vanishes from the market, Chinese researchers coax CAR-T cells into clearing leukaemia with a fraction of the usual dose, and a Stanford microscope pulls off the neat trick of watching living cells in unprecedented detail.

Keep the magic alive,

Dodo

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👫 Couple who helped create Covid vaccine to leave BioNTech (The Times): Ugur Sahin and Ozlem Tureci, the husband-and-wife duo behind BioNTech’s mRNA Covid vaccine, are “ready to become pioneers again”. The co-founders will step down by year-end to launch their third start-up, where they’ll develop next-generation mRNA therapies. The news sent BioNTech shares tumbling 20% to around $80. Last year, the company posted €1.1B net loss on €2.9B revenue whilst pivoting from Covid to oncology, with 15 Phase 3 cancer trials planned by year-end.

Our take: Sahin and Tureci built BioNTech as a research-led biotech, and now it needs to become a commercial pharma company. Those are rather different beasts. Pioneering new science and managing multi-product oncology portfolios require different skill sets entirely. The founders recognise this – believing they’re better suited to building platforms than overseeing regulatory filings and pricing negotiations. The share drop shows some uncertainty, but it’s a sensible move in the long run.

💉 Newly minted MiniMed nets EU approval for 780G pump and Abbott’s Instinct CGM (Fierce Biotech): Fresh from its Medtronic spinout, MiniMed has secured CE mark approval to connect a new continuous glucose monitor – Abbott’s wearable, ‘Instinct’ – to its insulin pump. The integrated system will cover Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes patients, aged 2 and up. The 15-day CGM sensor, built on FreeStyle Libre technology, joins two existing compatible CGMs. A European launch is planned for summer.

Our take: The approval covers Type 2 diabetes, but reimbursement systems were designed for Type 1 patients and haven’t remotely caught up. European health systems already struggle to fund CGMs for all Type 1 patients – expanding access to the considerably larger Type 2 population (where oral meds and GLP-1s cost far less) requires proving pumps prevent expensive complications better than existing therapies. Payers will likely keep access restricted until someone produces convincing health economics data.

🎗️ Ipsen withdraws cancer drug following safety concerns (European Biotechnology Magazine): Ipsen has pulled Tazverik from the market after its confirmatory trial revealed the drug might be causing secondary cancers. The EZH2 inhibitor got accelerated FDA approval in 2020 for two rare cancers – follicular lymphoma and epithelioid sarcoma – based on early data. Six years on, the SYMPHONY 1 trial showed secondary haematological malignancies emerging. Thankfully, all patients are being switched to standard therapy.

Our take: Accelerated approval is meant to get promising therapies to desperate patients faster, but Tazverik demonstrates the gamble. Patients took the drug for six years before confirmatory data revealed it might cause new cancers. If this is mechanism-related rather than molecule-specific, other EZH2 inhibitors could face questions – though that’s speculation. Meanwhile, follicular lymphoma and epithelioid sarcoma patients just lost one of their few treatment options.

🧫 CAR-T cell therapy boosted by biomimetic platform in refractory leukaemia (GEN): Chinese researchers have developed a ferritin aggregation cell engager (FACE) that strengthens the link between CAR-T cells and leukaemia cells without genetic modification. Added as a culture supplement during manufacturing, it binds to CD71 (expressed on both cell types), creating a molecular bridge. FACE-CAR-T cells matched standard efficacy at 20% of the usual cell dose and cleared leukaemia even when antigen levels dropped to 10% of normal.

Our take: Manufacturing costs scale directly with cell numbers. Fewer cells means cheaper production, faster timelines, and less leukapheresis burden, while maintaining similar efficacy. Current pricing (at £400k a dose) is partly justified by horrendously complex manufacturing. However, delivering the same outcomes with far fewer cells changes the cost structure entirely. If this holds, we might get CAR-T therapy that’s economically sustainable rather than a last-resort option.

And finally…

🔬 One-of-a-kind microscope reveals living cells in unprecedented detail (Phys.org): Stanford researchers have developed a new technique called Interferometric Image Scanning Microscopy (iISM), which can image cellular structures at 120-nanometre resolution – the highest achieved label-free. The technique combines interferometric scattering with array detector technology and works by shining a laser on a cell, then amplifying and collecting the scattered light signals. iISM uses substantially lower illumination power than comparable methods, allowing extended observation of living cells. Three Stanford collaborations are already using the microscope to study plant–microbe interactions, cancer drug uptake, and malaria-infected red blood cells in real time.

Our take: Sure, the resolution isn’t as sharp as super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, but while fluorescent labels wear off over time and can change the behaviour of the structures they tag, iISM lets researchers observe many structures inside living cells simultaneously for hours. Most high-resolution techniques blast cells with intense light, meaning you’re watching stressed cells reacting to your microscope rather than normal biology. Here, the lower laser power reduces the risk of photodamage to DNA and proteins, so the delicate living structures can remain undisturbed.

Tune in 🎧

🌱 Nature’s Balance Sheet: Kevin Webb, Managing Director of Superorganism, discusses why biodiversity is the next frontier for venture capital, and why nature has been catastrophically undervalued in our economic systems.

🤖 Why Most Bioprocess Automation Projects Fail Before the Robot Is Even Ordered: Host David Brühlmann and Anthony Catacchio, CEO of Product Insight, explore why rigorous system design and problem definition matter more than any individual technology, and how industrial robotics can lead to smarter lab automation.

📉 The Great Labour Shuffle: Brett, Nick, and Sam dissect how industry giants like Block are slashing 40% of their workforce overnight while accelerating AI adoption – challenging everything you thought you knew about employment, productivity, and economic growth.

Apply ✍️

🧪 Senior Research Scientist, Recursion: Keen to hunt for the next small-molecule contender? You’ll build sharp cell and biochemical assays, probe compound behaviour, test new technologies, and generate the data that pushes drug discovery programmes toward candidate selection.

🦠 Microbiological Technologist, GSK: Got an eye for invisible troublemakers? You’ll test sterile and non-sterile products, analyse results for batch release, investigate odd microbial findings, and keep QC labs audit-ready while working closely with production and quality teams.

🧮 Bioinformatician, Healx: Fancy teaching algorithms new medical tricks? You’ll develop drug-combination prediction models, analyse rare disease datasets, and work with scientists and engineers to generate therapeutic hypotheses for rare neurology and oncology programmes.

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🇮🇹 23–24.03 | 29th European Biotechnology Congress | Rome, Italy: An international gathering where researchers, clinicians, and industry leaders present discoveries, discuss emerging technologies, and explore collaborations shaping the future of biotechnology.

🧬 26.03 | The CGT Circle | London, UK: A networking event for the cell and gene therapy community, bringing together scientists, founders, and industry professionals to spark new conversations and connections.

🧪 21.04 | BioSolutions UK | London, UK: Hosted by the BIA, this event connects innovators, investors, and industry leaders to explore how engineering biology is shaping the future bioeconomy.

📑 29.04 | The Hardian Health Tech Summit | London, UK: Join regulators, NHS leaders, and industry experts for real-world insight into regulation and market access in medical devices.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Greetings, my brainy pals,

This week, a pioneering Spanish study challenges the baby brain myth, suggesting that tired mums shed grey matter to become even better parents; an experimental drug could offer life-changing benefits for a rare form of childhood epilepsy; Roche is making big moves in South Korea with a half‑billion‑pound investment; relief is on the horizon as a new dwarfism drug gets the FDA nod; and Welsh biotech Antiverse has raised just shy of £10 million to develop next‑gen antibodies targeting cystic fibrosis.

Until next time,

Dodo

If you’d like to sponsor a future edition of Biotech Dodo, send us a message.

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👶 Pregnant women’s brains shed grey matter to prime them for motherhood, study suggests (BBC News): The long‑held “baby brain” stereotype, that pregnancy makes women forgetful, has been challenged by Spanish researchers. The Be Mother project found that expectant mothers shed about 5% of their grey matter – particularly in regions handling empathy and social connection – with greater brain changes correlating to stronger bonding after birth. It seems pregnancy triggers a neurological spring clean that primes women for the exhausting marathon of keeping tiny humans alive.

Our take: The project’s scale exposes an embarrassing gap in neuroscience: pregnancy has been forgotten as a fundamental biological process. For decades, adult brain models have been built on non-pregnant, often male, samples – effectively sidelining half the population’s most dramatic neurological transition. This blind spot likely skews our entire understanding of typical brain structure and function, which is odd, given that pregnancy and birth are hardly fringe experiences.

🧠 Scientists laud potentially life-changing drug for children with resistant form of epilepsy (The Guardian): A groundbreaking Phase 3 study has found that the experimental drug Zorevunersen could dramatically cut seizures in children with Dravet syndrome – by half after one dose, and by up to 80% after three doses. Published in NEJM, the research also showed improvements in movement, communication, and daily living. Experts hailed it as marking a shift from symptom management to targeting the genetic root of severe childhood epilepsies.

Our take: Antisense oligonucleotide therapies, once confined to rare metabolic and muscular diseases, are expanding into neurological disorders – rather promising, given over 800 genetic epilepsies have been identified. However, it’s not exactly a blockbuster model, with each form of epilepsy requiring its own targeted therapy. That being said, the findings could establish a template for developing precision medicines for rare paediatric conditions, assuming pharma can stomach developing hundreds of drugs for small patient populations.

💰 Roche announces $481m investment in South Korean biotech sector (Investment Monitor): The five-year programme aims to boost South Korea’s biotech and clinical research ecosystem, under a new deal with the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The move will expand global clinical trials, foster R&D partnerships, and train local specialists. As global pharma investment in Korea surges – up 74% since 2020 – Roche’s open-innovation push positions the country as a rising hub for next‑gen drug development.

Our take: South Korea has been rather clever about vying for position as Asia’s regulatory innovation leader, with 30-day clinical trial approval timelines that beat most Western markets hands-down. With AstraZeneca also opening a Seoul biotech hub, Korea is becoming an attractive location for companies looking to run efficient trials without the regulatory sluggishness that plagues legacy markets. The country’s advanced infrastructure and government backing make it easier for pharma to test new approaches without fighting entrenched bureaucracy.

💊 Ascendis wins FDA approval of dwarfism drug (BioPharma Dive): Yuviwel, a once‑weekly injection to help spur bone growth in people with achondroplasia, breaks BioMarin’s monopoly on dwarfism drugs. The accelerated approval positions Yuviwel as a more convenient once-weekly alternative to BioMarin’s daily Voxzogo injection. Analysts expect patient switching of up to 40%, projecting $41.5M in sales with EU expansion in 2027. The price of Yuviwel will be announced in the coming weeks.

Our take: Orphan drug markets have thrived on high prices and market exclusivity for years, with little pressure to compete on anything beyond regulatory approval. Competition in rare conditions forces incumbents to justify pricing with clearer clinical differentiation, which Voxzogo will now need to demonstrate. Another contender, BridgeBio’s pill therapy, adds yet another layer of pressure. When patients have sustainable choices, convenience starts mattering as much as efficacy.

And finally…

🫁 Antiverse raises $9.3m Series A and partners with Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (BioXconomy): The AI antibody developer’s latest funding round was led by Soulmates Ventures, bringing total investment to over $20m. The Welsh biotech is expanding its AI antibody design platform and advancing its lead programmes toward the clinic by 2027. It’s also partnering with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to design breakthrough antibodies targeting the notoriously hard-to-treat CFTR protein, opening new frontiers in cystic fibrosis therapy.

Our take: The Cardiff success story shows that deep-tech biotech can thrive outside the golden triangle. Lower operational costs and untapped talent pools make regional hubs look rather sensible. Wales’ emerging biotech scene, backed by university partnerships and targeted investment funds, offers a model for regional growth where proximity to Oxford or Cambridge matters far less than having the right infrastructure and support networks in place.

Tune in 🎧

👄 Making biologics orally available with Vivtex’s Thomas von Erlach, PhD: Thomas shares the company’s journey through stealth development, strategic partnerships,  and the mission to unlock next‑gen oral therapies for obesity and diabetes.

🐉 Why Asia is the emerging epicentre for global biopharmaceutical progress: As China, Japan, and India each build distinct strengths across the drug development spectrum, McKinsey’s Fangning Zhang explores how Asia is reshaping the global biopharma landscape.

🧑‍⚖️ Where life science meets litigation: Patent litigator Tim Dabrowski discusses his pivot from medicine to law, the value of scientific expertise in IP battles, and the challenges of translating complex biotech concepts for legal wins.

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🧑‍🔬 Manager (Consulting), Life Sciences, Gate One: Want to shape how life sciences leaders bring breakthrough therapies to market? You’ll lead transformative, high‑value programmes across global commercial and cross‑functional teams, drive account growth and business development, and mentor consultants to excel.

🇪🇺 Industry Director BioPharma Europe, Thermo Fisher Scientific: Ready to drive impact at the intersection of science and strategy? You’ll manage and grow relationships with top-tier customers, developing multi‑year account plans and coordinating cross‑divisional teams to deliver end‑to‑end solutions.

📋 Phorum Engagement Manager - Quality, BioPhorum: Interested in working at the centre of global pharma quality leadership? You’ll build trusted relationships with Chief Quality Officers and senior leaders, translating insights from strategic conversations into programme development.

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🍺 11.03 | Biotech & Beers | Newcastle, UK: An informal evening for the North East life sciences community to meet, swap ideas, and expand their networks. Expect relaxed conversations and plenty of opportunities to connect with fellow scientists, founders, and industry professionals over a drink.

🇮🇹 23-24.03 | 29th European Biotechnology Congress | Rome, Italy: A major international gathering where researchers, clinicians, and industry leaders come together to present discoveries, discuss emerging technologies, and explore collaborations shaping the future of biotechnology.

🧬 26.03 | The CGT Circle | London, UK: A networking event dedicated to the cell and gene therapy community. Designed to spark conversation and new connections, it brings together scientists, founders, and industry professionals working at the forefront of advanced therapies.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my fellow forward thinkers,

This week, pride and progress share the stage. Nominations open for Endpoints’ LGBTQ+ leaders in biopharma, AI tools edge closer to everyday bench science, Dupixent collects yet another inflammatory indication, camel-derived peptides take a swing at antibiotic resistance, and in Oxford, a transplanted womb delivers a baby and a quiet redefinition of what transplantation can be.

Thanks for reading,

Dodo

If you’d like to sponsor a future edition of Biotech Dodo, send us a message.

Succeeding in an industry under pressure

60% of biopharma firms are missing market share goals. Find out why, and learn what leaders are doing to deliver.

Find out why

Discover 🔍

🌈 Who’s leading LGBTQ+ inclusion in biopharma? Nominate them for Endpoints’ annual report (Endpoints): Nominations are open for the fifth edition of the LGBTQ+ Leaders in Biopharma report, which profiles around a dozen scientists, executives, investors and other figures each year. The 2026 edition arrives at an important moment, as anti-LGBTQ bills in the US continue to climb, federal health research has been scaled back, and several large companies have retreated from DEI commitments. Nominations close 25 March, with the report due in June.

Our take: With major companies pulling back from DEI surveys, agreeing to be publicly profiled carries more weight than it did in 2022, making reports like this one all the more worthwhile. Biopharma benefits from people who think differently and live differently, and young people considering science careers jolly well deserve to see that reflected. Endpoints has built the closest thing the sector has to a longitudinal record of LGBTQ+ leadership.

👩🏻‍💻 Tamarind Bio secures $13.6M Series A to make AI more accessible for biology (GEN):The Stanford-founded company offers a library of 200+ AI models covering antibodies, peptides, small molecules and more – removing the need for bench scientists to code or wrangle cloud infrastructure. Around 100 biotech companies now use the platform, including eight of the top 20 pharma players, which caught the eye of Dimension Capital, who led the round. Apparently, wet lab biologists were forever emailing computational colleagues to run AlphaFold jobs on their behalf; Tamarind made that email unnecessary.

Our take: AlphaFold won a Nobel Prize, but most bench biologists still couldn’t use it without emailing a colleague. That gap between model capability and practical usability has been wildly underestimated. The industry spent years optimising model performance while the actual bottleneck – getting non-computational scientists to run them independently – went largely unaddressed. Tamarind is essentially selling smart access to something that already exists.

🤧 FDA approves Dupixent as first treatment for AFRS (The Pharmaletter): The approval covers adults and children aged six and older with a history of sinus surgery for allergic fungal rhinosinusitis (AFRS), a chronic condition driven by allergic hypersensitivity to fungi. Developed by Regeneron and licensed to Sanofi, Dupixent generated a rather handsome $18.5 billion in sales last year and is now approved across nine distinct type 2 inflammatory diseases in the US. One does get around.

Our take: Nine indications and counting. Each approval cements Dupixent as the default type 2 inflammation drug, a position that competitors will find very difficult to displace. Worth noting, though, that the surgery prerequisite may exclude patients who would benefit, simply because they haven’t had the chance to fail surgery first.

🐫 Camel antimicrobials could get us over the hump of antibiotic resistance (BioTechniques): Researchers at Sultan Qaboos University have identified three antimicrobial peptides from dromedary camels, two of which showed jolly impressive activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria including MRSA and E. coli. The peptides kill bacteria by damaging cell membranes, rather than through site-specific binding which conventional antibiotics relies on. Both showed low toxicity at therapeutic concentrations. Terribly well-mannered, as far as antimicrobials go.

Our take: Camels already gave us nanobodies, the single-domain antibodies now used across diagnostics and therapeutics. These new antimicrobial peptides suggest camel immunology has rather more to offer. Their immune systems evolved under frightfully harsh conditions: desert heat, scarce water, relentless pathogen load. That sort of evolutionary pressure tends to produce defence molecules that temperate-climate lab animals simply never needed to develop. One does wonder what else is in there.

And finally…

🍼 ‘Miracle’ baby born to first UK womb transplant from dead donor (BBC News): Grace Bell, born without a functioning womb due to MRKH syndrome, has given birth to a rather splendid baby boy at The Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Hugo, now 10 weeks old, is the first UK baby born through deceased donor uterine transplantation. The transplant is the third of ten in a UK clinical trial, but the first baby born. More than 100 womb transplants have been performed worldwide, resulting in over 70 healthy births.

Our take: Unlike most transplants, the womb is removed after one or two pregnancies to spare lifelong immunosuppression. A temporary organ with a planned exit point is a rather novel concept in transplantation and it changes the risk-benefit arithmetic considerably, particularly for conditions where quality of life is the goal. MRKH affects 1 in 5,000 women, and until very recently, transplantation simply wasn’t on the table.

Tune in 🎧

🤖 Did AI researchers let AI hallucinations into scientific papers?: A top AI conference accepted papers with 100 fabricated citations. GPTZero’s Alex Cui explains how it happened, and what it reveals about researchers’ AI habits.

🦟 Titans of Science: Jane Carlton: She stole her brother’s genetics textbook at 8, then went on to sequence the malaria parasite genome. Jane now directs Johns Hopkins’ Malaria Research Institute.

🌧️ The world is running out of water; Why some people get stuck in grief; Is our black hole a clump of dark matter?: Can artificially seeding clouds solve global water shortages? Is prolonged grief a real brain condition? And is Sagittarius A* actually dark matter? A busy week for science.

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🧭 Technical Programme Manager, Latent Labs: Thrive where code meets pipettes? This hire will orchestrate ML research, wet lab teams, and partners, bringing structure to ambitious programmes and keeping bold, science-heavy projects moving from plan to impact.

🫀 SVP Head of Cardio-Renal Research, Evotec: Ready to steer a therapeutic empire? You’ll set cardio-renal R&D strategy, back high-value targets, manage budget and partnerships, and guide programmes from discovery through preclinical build-out.

📊 Laboratory Manager, Imperial College London: Fancy running a start-up playground for deep science? You’ll keep shared labs humming, manage safety and kit from gas lines to LN2, support founders, and become the go-to on-site lab fixer.

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🦾 05.03 | Women in Biotech - BIA | Cambridge, UK: Celebrate International Women’s Day with a full day of thought-leading panels and discussions, inspirational talks as well as exciting keynote speakers.

🍺 11.03 | Biotech & Beers | Newcastle, UK: Join Bionow for an networking evening which provides opportunities for people from companies working in or with the life sciences sector to network and socialise with their peers in an informal setting.

📑 29.04 | The Hardian Health Tech Summit | London, UK: The Hardian team will be joined by representatives from the MHRA, FDA, NICE, NHS leaders, and more across the healthtech world for real-world insight into regulation and market access in medical devices.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Good morning, my selfish simians,

This week, China’s biotech boom has gone full Planet of the Apes, electric brain shocks could curb our selfish streak and boost empathy, and new findings reveal consciousness lingering for hours after cardiac arrest. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has announced a bumper multibillion-pound investment in China, and market optimism is returning to UK biotech despite a tricky 2025.

Until next week,

Dodo

If there’s anything you’d like to see in future editions of Biotech Dodo, send us a message.

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🐒 China’s biotech boom sends price of lab monkeys for drug tests climbing (SCMP): China’s biotech gold rush is monkeying with primate prices. Lab monkeys now fetch 140,000 yuan ($20k) each – more than the average annual salary – doubling in five years amid blockbuster licensing deals and revived funding. However, with 70% of drug-development costs associated with late-stage trials, costly animal models should not make medicine bills go bananas.

Our take: High demand and limited supplies through 2026 have prompted CROs, like WuXi AppTec and Joinn Laboratories, to acquire monkey farms and land in Florida for quarantine facilities – creating resilient, self-sufficient primate supply chains. These structural changes hedge against price volatility and shortages, positioning them as dominant players in global preclinical services. Another upside: owned supply chains could potentially lock in cost advantages and enable faster trial timelines for domestic biotechs.

⚡ Can a pulse of electricity to the brain make us less selfish? (BBC News): University of Zurich scientists zapped 44 volunteers’ frontal and parietal brain zones with mild electric pulses, coaxing them to share more with strangers in a split‑the‑cash game. Syncing empathy and decision circuits delivered consistent, if modest, altruism boosts. The findings highlight a neural mechanism behind generosity and point to potential targets relevant to social dysfunction. However, whether repeated sessions could produce lasting effects remains an open question.

Our take: While the behavioural shift was subtle and short-lived, the study does something more interesting than simply making people “nicer”. By enhancing gamma synchronisation between frontal and parietal regions, the researchers increased how much others’ outcomes influenced participants’ decisions. That makes this less about flicking an “empathy switch” and more about modulating the neural circuitry that integrates self and other interests in real time.

🇨🇳 AstraZeneca to invest US$15bn in China manufacturing and R&D (The Chemical Engineer): AstraZeneca’s expansion dovetails with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s China visit, forging deeper UK-China trade ties through partnerships with Cambridge, Oxford, and King’s College London universities. This structural linkage funnels Chinese manufacturing scale and clinical trial speed into British-led R&D, creating a trans-national pipeline for cell therapies and oncology drugs that bolsters AstraZeneca’s global portfolio, while supporting thousands of UK jobs in life sciences.

Our take: The investment amplifies synergies between China’s CAR-T/stem cell trial dominance and AstraZeneca’s radioconjugates expertise, fostering hybrid modalities like radiolabeled cell therapies for precision oncology. This partnership could yield breakthrough therapy combos unfeasible elsewhere, helping the company diversify beyond traditional small molecules and fortifying their edge in a crowded next-gen cancer market, while aligning with China’s push for indigenous innovation leadership.

🧠 Consciousness could last hours after ‘death’ (The Times): It seems that death is more a dimmer switch than an off button, with brain activity and awareness lingering “minutes to hours” after cardiac arrest, according to research from Arizona State University. Lingering brain activity makes exact time of death difficult to declare, with ramifications for transplantation led by the dead-donor rule. This, and near-death survivors’ experiences, is prompting calls to reconsider CPR duration, adopt “stages of death” protocols, and rethink organ harvest timing.

Our take: Shifting death from a binary “off switch” to staged phases risks complicating transplant practice, consent frameworks and hospital end-of-life structures. And extended CPR, driven by evidence of “elements of consciousness” and electrical signals post-arrest, could impose resource strains on emergency medicine. This persistent consciousness demands rethinking sedation, analgesia, and bedside dignity to ensure humane care in vulnerable final moments.

And finally….

📈 Number of UK biotech companies rising, says report (pharmaphorum): Analysis from Knight Frank reveals the biotech sector has expanded by 22% since 2019, with the UK now home to over 15,000 companies. While growth cooled in 2025 amid economic uncertainty and a drop in venture funding, optimism is rebounding as investor confidence improves. The golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge remains the powerhouse for innovation – boasting record-high lab construction – yet the North West is now outpacing the South East for new start-ups.

Our take: Ey ‘Up! Government incentives tailored specifically for regions outside the Golden Triangle, such as targeted tax breaks and R&D grants in the North West, appear to be accelerating the development of new companies. This decentralised approach is narrowing the traditional north-south divide in life sciences, which could go on to foster a more balanced UK biotech ecosystem that leverages local economic strengths.

Tune in 🎧

🔬 Company turnarounds and AI for infectious diseases with Seek Labs’ Jared Bauer: Cofounder and CEO Jared Bauer shares his journey through biotech turnarounds and how Seek Labs is merging AI, diagnostics and CRISPR-based therapeutics to tackle infectious diseases.

🦀 A strategic turn from obesity to cancer: CEO Amy Burroughs discusses leading Terns Pharmaceuticals through a pivotal transformation, from metabolic disease to oncology, with a novel allosteric BCR‑ABL inhibitor for chronic myeloid leukaemia.

🩸 A Plasmid-Based Cancer Therapy – Dr Alexander Schneider: Founder and CEO Dr Alex Schneider joins Dr Kevin Folta to unpack the evolution from chemotherapy to immunotherapy, spotlighting CureLab’s plasmid‑based therapy, Elanogen, for refractory cancers.

Apply ✍️

📋 Validation Specialist, Kedrion Biopharma UK: Looking to build your career in a GMP‑regulated lab? In this role, you’ll perform analytical testing, maintain documentation to quality standards, and help ensure smooth daily lab operations.

💊 Director of AI/ML Drug Development, Quotient Sciences: Ready to drive digital innovation in Translational Pharmaceutics? You’ll lead the creation of an AI/ML‑enabled drug development function, implementing advanced tools to enhance decision‑making, scientific excellence, and the design and delivery of future medicines.

🧑‍🔬 Bio Processing Associate - Manufacturing, Leica Biosystems: Want to help advance cancer diagnostics from lab to life? You’ll support manufacturing through scientific expertise, ensuring high‑quality product production and smooth transfer of new innovations.

RSVP 📆

🧫 23.02 | 5th Crick Rare Diseases Conference 2026 | London, UK: An annual meeting uniting clinicians, scientists, and industry experts to share insights, advance understanding, and explore new approaches to diagnosing and treating rare diseases.

🤝 23-27.02 | Biotech Digital Partnering | Online: Five days of global online partnering for pharma, biotech, medtech, and digital health companies – featuring pre‑arranged one‑on‑one Zoom meetings to drive business development and licensing opportunities.

👩🏻‍💻 27.02 | Innovation in Women’s Health and Femtech | London, UK: Explore breakthroughs in women’s health technology, digital tools, and data strategies to improve patient outcomes and integrate innovative solutions into clinical practice.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my fellow pioneers,

This week, the immune system takes centre stage. Tumours are being prodded in human tissue, CAR-T makes an in vivo pivot into autoimmune disease, a troublesome bacterial sugar finds itself implicated in ALS and dementia, the FDA gives Moderna’s flu ambitions a chilly reception, and the Royal Society turns its attention to the women whose scientific contributions never quite made it onto the map for Women and Girls in STEM day this week.

Mind the cytokines,

Dodo

Discover 🔍

🎗️ Physiological human in vitro models to study and evaluate tumor immunology (GEN): Three studies nudge tumour immunology further into the human lane. A UPenn vascularised chip lets researchers watch CAR-T cells slip through vessels and into solid tumours in real time, exposing endothelial choke points. A patient-derived lymphoma organoid traces post-chemo immune faltering to germinal centre B-cell failure. And in Singapore, hyaluronic acid hydrogels kept tumour explants alive for 12 days, preserving immune diversity for drug testing.

Our take: Mouse xenografts were serviceable stand-ins, but solid tumours are fussy, territorial things. These chips and organoids let researchers watch the whole skirmish unfold in human tissue, from CAR-T extravasation to stromal obstruction and immune exhaustion after chemotherapy. Instead of waiting for tumour shrinkage curves, teams can now observe where therapies stall and why, and refine strategy before patients even enter the frame.

🛡️ Eli Lilly enters CAR T realm with $2.4B orna buy, starting with autoimmune (BioSpace): The deal gives Lilly access to in vivo CAR-T tech that uses circular RNA delivered via lipid nanoparticles to generate CAR-T cells inside the body, sidestepping the traditional ex vivo manufacturing process. Lead asset Orna-252 targets CD19 for B cell-driven autoimmune diseases and is clinical trial-ready, though still preclinical. CEO David Ricks previously dismissed CAR-T over accessibility concerns, making this a notable about-face.

Our take: Ricks told Reuters in 2019 the data was “amazing” but CAR-T simply couldn’t reach enough people. Now, in vivo delivery has removed the manufacturing bottleneck, Lilly has gone straight for autoimmune, where eligible patients number in the millions rather than the thousands currently receiving CAR-T for cancer. That’s a bet on CAR-T as a mass-market modality, and the other large pharma holdouts will likely follow suit.

🍭 Gut-brain discovery identifies harmful bacterial sugar as potential therapeutic target for ALS and dementia (MedicalXpress): A whopping 70% of the 23 patients examined had dangerous levels of inflammatory glycogen produced by gut bacteria, vs 1/3 of those without. For C9ORF72 mutation carriers, the most common genetic cause of both conditions, it may explain why only some people develop disease. Reducing the harmful sugars in mice improved brain health and lifespan. Clinical trials are potentially a year away.

Our take: If degrading a bacterial sugar in the gut can slow progression, the resulting therapy could be mechanistically straightforward - a gut-targeted enzyme or sugar-degrading agent. That’s a simple intervention aimed at diseases where current options are ruinously expensive and largely palliative. How pharma prices a cheap mechanism against a desperate, high-value patient population will be rather revealing.

❌ FDA declines to review Moderna application for new flu vaccine (The Guardian): The agency argues Moderna’s clinical trials didn’t stand up against the best available standard of care. The trials compared the new shot to standard flu vaccines in under-65s and high-dose vaccines in over-65s, a design previously agreed with the FDA. The refusal letter, unusually signed by CBER director Vinay Prasad, identified no safety or efficacy concerns. The application is already under review in the EU, Canada and Australia.

Our take: If a foreign regulator licenses an mRNA flu vaccine that the FDA wouldn’t review, it puts the agency in a rather awkward spot. This is the same agency that fast-tracked mRNA authorisation during COVID. Stalling on the same platform five years later, on a trial design it previously agreed to, sends a peculiar message to every vaccine developer weighing US-first filing strategies. Moderna may simply build its flu franchise elsewhere.

And finally…

👭 Royal Society calls for public’s help to build Women in STEM history map of the UK (The Royal Society): The project currently covers sites around the Society’s London headquarters, drawn from a rather industrious year of archival digging. Now the public is being enlisted to submit locations from across the UK tied to women from science history. It marks 80 years since women were first elected to the Society’s Fellowship, a jolly good milestone given they were kept out for the previous 285.

Our take: A year of dedicated archival research and the Royal Society still needs the public to fill in the blanks. Sounds… familar… The map makes visible just how thoroughly women’s contributions went unrecorded by the very institutions that benefited from them. Crowdsourcing here amounts to retrospective cataloguing that ought to have happened decades ago. Splendid project, mind you, for this year’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

Tune in 🎧

🏆 Why AI, obesity and breast cancer will dominate 2026: DDW editors discuss how artificial intelligence, obesity treatments, and breast cancer research will attract significant investor attention and fundamentally reshape the drug discovery landscape throughout 2026.

📈 Biotech Beat NVIDIA in 2025. Can It Do It Again?: Analysts discuss whether biotech can repeat its 2025 outperformance of NVIDIA, focusing on Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk earnings, FDA regulatory challenges, and managing investment risk in 2026.

🧠 Mini human brains, termination shock, and ancient fossils: Guests discuss lab-grown brain organoids with blood vessels, the catastrophic risks of geoengineering “termination shock,” and a massive discovery of 512-million-year-old fossils in a Chinese quarry.

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🧪 Scientist I/II, Bioconjugation, Abzena: Expert in molecular matchmaking? Master the art of bioconjugation by linking cytotoxic drugs and oligonucleotides to proteins, using next-generation platforms like ThioBridge® to develop life-changing ADCs.

💊 Project Manager I Drug Development, Quotient Sciences: Ready to transition from the lab to leadership? Use your analytical or R&D background to act as the primary bridge between clients and scientists, managing complex drug development timelines and budgets.

🍺 Fermentation Scientist I, Bactobio: Think you can outsmart superbugs? Use your expertise in bioreactors and non-model microbes to scale production of novel compounds, turning deeptech insights into life-saving medical and agricultural solutions.

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🤖 18.02 | Startup Lab: AI Compliance | London, UK: Join experts to find out how to master the UK’s AI regulatory landscape, clinical safety, and data protection obligations to build secure, compliant healthtech products.

🌎 20.02 | Biocom Global Partnering and Investor Conference | California, USA: California’s premier life science partnering event, uniting 500+ investors, CEOs, and execs from pharma, biotech, and research for deal-making, small company showcases, and insights on the latest industry trends and innovation.

👩🏻‍💻 27.02 | Innovation in Women’s Health and Femtech | London, UK: Explore breakthroughs in women’s health technology, digital tools, and data strategies to improve patient outcomes and integrate innovative solutions into clinical practice.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Greetings,

Dodo’s overdue for a haircut, and biotech seems to be reaching for the scissors, too. Faces are being rebuilt nerve by nerve, hair loss finally gets serious capital for regrowth, menstrual blood offers an easier way to screen for cancer, GSK is trimming its R&D workforce, and Europe sharpens its regulatory tools to stop clinical trials being cut from the continent.

See you at the next appointment,

Dodo

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🤯 Woman receives first face transplant from assisted death donor (The Times): The plot of Face/Off became reality this week as Spain carried out the world’s first facial transplant from a woman who chose assisted dying. At Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron hospital, a 100-specialist team restored Carme’s face after a devastating flesh-eating infection. The procedure transplanted skin, muscle, nerves, and bone from a donor who gave explicit consent before ending her life under Spain’s assisted dying law.

Our take: Advanced 3D modelling has enabled remarkable precision in bone and muscle matching for Carme’s transplant, the likes of which we haven’t seen before in traditional transplants. However, long-term data on immunosuppression risks remain sparse for recipients with prior flesh-eating infections versus trauma cases. This brings about the urgent need for longitudinal clinical trials to track rejection rates, nerve regeneration, and functional outcomes.

🧑‍🦲 Baldness Biotech Veradermics prices $256M IPO for pivotal tests of pill for hair loss (Med City): Help is finally at hand for the Vin Diesels of this world. Baldness biotech Veradermics’s lead candidate, VDPHL01, turns the active ingredient in Rogaine into an oral, extended-release pill designed to deliver lasting results without heart risk. The company saw its shares more than double on debut, at $34 per share, going above and beyond their original $14–$16 target – a clear vote of confidence from investors.

Our take: Hair loss R&D has languished due to its lack of glamour, despite affecting 80M patients. Veradermics' IPO represents the first major non-hormonal innovation in hair loss treatment since finasteride's 1997 approval. If pivotal studies show that a controlled‑dose minoxidil pill improves adherence and long‑term safety, Veradermics could end up defining a new regulatory standard for systemic hair‑loss therapies. This could spell financial trouble for toupee salesmen everywhere.

🩸 Period blood test could offer less invasive alternative to cervical screening (BBC News): Women’s time of the month could hold the key to cancer diagnosis. Chinese researchers behind a BMJ report tested menstrual blood collected discreetly on sanitary pads, proving it nearly matches clinical HPV detection accuracy. With a third of UK women failing to attend appointments due to the pain and intrusion, this offers a private, pain-free, at-home option. It could make life-saving tests as routine as a monthly cycle.

Our take: While not a replacement for cervical screening, the test could cut the number of people avoiding invasive speculum exams and improve health equity. Menstrual blood collection bypasses clinic infrastructure entirely, enabling scalable at-home screening via mail-back kits processed in centralised labs, which could decentralise NHS cervical screening programs and reduce reliance on overstretched GP practices amid workforce shortages.

🪓 GSK plans to lay off up to 350 R&D workers across US, UK (Fierce Pharma): The figures currently stand at <50 in the UK and <70 in the US from its 12,000-strong R&D workforce, but could be more. The company says it’s reallocating resources whilst investing in technology to drive productivity. GSK invested £6.4B in R&D in 2024 and plans for $30B in the US R&D and supply chain infrastructure over 5 years. The cuts appear part of an ongoing initiative predating new CEO Luke Miels’ January appointment.

Our take: Calling this a reallocation whilst “investing in technology to maximise productivity,” likely means automation is replacing headcount. With R&D spending up 90% since 2016, but workforce numbers aren’t following, means the money’s presumably flowing into AI, software, and lab equipment rather than salaries. This is what productivity gains look like in pharma R&D – fewer scientists per discovery program, more computational infrastructure.

And finally…

🏆 Proposed Biotech act would help EU win more trials, says EMA (BioXconomy): The Act promises to slash clinical review timelines from 106 to 75 days in the hopes of reclaiming Europe’s competitive edge in drug development. Under the legislation, substantial modification assessments drop from 96 to 47 days, with ATMP extensions eliminated, and risk-proportionate regulations to minimise administrative burdens. The Act also contains a series of initiatives to strengthen the EU’s biotech ecosystem.

Our take: Europe hopes to reverse the curious case of biotech brain drain. Current trial reviews are dwarfed by the US’s 30-day INDs. Faced with economic decline, Europe can’t afford to spectate while the US pours $52B+ into semiconductor tech, and Asia builds manufacturing dominance. Faster approvals aim to reverse Europe’s 12% share of global trials (down from 22% since 2013), but unlocking scale requires addressing the venture gaps in late-stage development.

Tune in 🎧

💡 Building a smart oncology pipeline with Cumulus Oncology: Drawing on 25 years in oncology drug development, Dr. Clare Wareing unpacks her journey from scientist to CEO and how Cumulus Oncology is redefining cancer drug discovery.

🎩 BoB@JPM: Brian Hilberdink, Boehringer Ingelheim: Brian returns to discuss new frontiers in obesity treatment, how private ownership fuels early‑stage innovation, and Boehringer’s evolving deal‑making and AI‑driven commercialisation strategy.

💅 Biotech in beauty products - Nicholas Brideau: This episode dives into how biotechnology is reshaping cosmetic innovation, from sustainable ingredient production to breakthroughs in AI‑enabled discovery of new actives.

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🧑‍🔬 Account Manager, Life Sciences Products, Azenta Life Sciences: Ready to shape growth across the sample management and biobanking sectors? You’ll drive sales of Azenta’s consumables and instrumentation portfolio and build strong client and partner networks.

🥼 Scientific Development Specialist, DNA Synthesis- EMEA, Twist Bioscience: Passionate about accelerating biologics innovation through synthetic biology? In this field‑based role, you’ll deliver technical support and scientific insight to drive collaborations in antibody discovery, variant library design, and mRNA therapeutics.

💡 Director Product | ELN, Dotmatics: Are you a visionary product leader ready to shape the next generation of scientific R&D platforms? You’ll guide high‑performing teams across early‑stage drug discovery and formulated product development.

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😷 11-13.02 | MedTech World Middle East 2026 | Dubai, Middle East: Global meeting point for medtech and healthtech investors, innovators, and industry leaders, offering opportunities to showcase cutting‑edge technologies.

🍻 12.02 | Biotech & Beers 2026 | Edinburgh, UK: An agenda-free networking evening hosted by Bionow, bringing together life sciences professionals for informal conversations, community building, and a drink or two.

🌎 20.02 | Biocom Global Partnering and Investor Conference | California, USA: California’s premier life science partnering event, uniting 500+ investors, CEOs, and execs from pharma, biotech, and research for deal-making, small company showcases, and insights on the latest industry trends and innovation.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Aitchoo!

Apologies, Dodo has a bit of a cold this week, and it seems like the industry is a little blocked up too. Synthetic viruses are being assembled under tight lab arrest, a former CEO discovers that prison is the ultimate non-compete clause, Duchenne gene therapy remains stuck behind a wall of durability questions, the sinusitis pipeline is congested with biologics, and quantum mechanics expands into protein engineering.

Take care,

Dodo

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🦠 Antibiotic resistance combatted by fully synthetic bacteriophage assembly (GEN): Researchers from New England Biolabs and Yale have developed a Golden Gate assembly platform that engineers bacteriophages synthetically from sequence data, rather than relying on natural phage isolates. Using the technique, the team assembled a P. aeruginosa phage from 28 synthetic DNA fragments – with programmed modifications including swapped tail fibre genes to alter host range, and fluorescent markers to visualise infection in real time.

Our take: Regulators are going to have an interesting time figuring out what box this fits into. The FDA’s existing phage guidance assumes you found something in nature and maybe changed a gene or two – nobody has written the rules for programmable phages yet. Before this gets anywhere near patients, regulators will need to define what manufacturing quality, comparability, and control even mean when the therapy itself is software-defined biology.

⛓️ CytoDyn’s former CEO gets jail time, $5.3M+ fine for securities fraud (BioSpace): Nader Pourhassan, who ran the company for nearly a decade, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for misleading investors about leronlimab, an antibody for HIV and COVID-19. Between 2018 and 2021, he overstated trial results, inflated the company’s share price, and sold 4.8M shares for $4.4M. Leronlimab failed its Phase 3 COVID trial in March 2021, despite being publicly described by Pourhassan as delivering “the best results ever achieved for this population.”

Our take: This all unfolded at the height of pandemic urgency, when data was thin and scrutiny lagged behind hope for a COVID cure. Prosecutors said Pourhassan “exploited a deadly public health crisis to intentionally deceive investors,” and the jury agreed. While the sentence sends a message, 2.5 years feels like a light price for the millions taken. More broadly, this shows how quickly optimism can outrun evidence when a system is under pressure, and how slowly accountability follows.

🧬 Sarepta touts three-year Duchenne gene therapy data after patient deaths rattled field (Endpoints): Patients treated with Elevidys showed a 4.39-point improvement on motor skills versus an external control group in Sarepta’s EMBARK study. The children were around nine years old at dosing, an age when patients’ decline typically begins to accelerate. The readout arrives after a rough year for the programme, after two liver failure deaths in non-ambulatory patients led to the therapy being removed from that population. Shares jumped 12% in reaction to the new data, but remain down roughly 80% over the past year.

Our take: For families considering a one-time gene therapy with real safety risks, durability is often the deciding factor. With Elevidys now restricted to ambulatory patients, Sarepta has to prove that benefit in younger boys is not just measurable, but lasting enough to justify hepatotoxicity concerns. For a disease with no cure and limited treatment options, sustained function over time could turn risk into a considered decision rather than a leap of faith.

🤧 A clearer path to relief: sinusitis treatments on the way (Labiotech): After years of steroids and surgery, the sinusitis pipeline is now congested with monoclonal antibodies. Dupixent is lining up for a ninth indication after Phase 3 data showed a 50% improvement in congestion, Tezspire won approval in October, and GSK’s depemokimab is awaiting a regulatory decision following positive Phase 3 data. Even earlier-stage candidates like Upstream Bio’s verekitug are causing a little hullabaloo (bless you!), reducing surgery and steroid use by 76% in Phase 2 trials.

Our take: Reducing steroid dependency is a clear win for patients, but biologics cost 50–100x more than the drugs they are replacing. The economics only stack up if they meaningfully cut surgery rates, hospital visits, and the downstream costs of managing steroid-related harm. That cost reality is why payers remain cautious about expanding access beyond the most severe cases. The clinical benefits are real, but that doesn’t automatically make them affordable at scale.

And finally…

⚛️ Quantum-enabled proteins open a new frontier in biotechnology (Phys.org): Oxford researchers have engineered fluorescent proteins that interact with magnetic fields and radio waves through quantum mechanics – yes, quantum effects happen inside biological molecules too! These magneto-sensitive proteins are the first biomolecules deliberately designed to harness quantum mechanics, allowing scientists to track specific molecules or gene expression inside living organisms, with potential uses in targeted drug delivery and tumour monitoring.

Our take: Most people think quantum usually lives in physics labs, not inside proteins. Instead of trying to design quantum sensors from scratch, the researchers leaned on directed evolution and let biology find workable solutions. The result is a way to track molecular activity inside living systems without bulky imaging hardware. Sitting at the confluence of biology, quantum physics and AI, this work marks a shift from speculative theory to practical tools.

Succeeding in an industry under pressure

60% of biopharma firms are missing market share goals. Find out why, and learn what leaders are doing to deliver.

Find out why

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🧬 Superbabies?: The ethics of prenatal genetic testing are examined through a philosophical lens, focusing on parental decision-making and the limits of genetic foresight.

💉 Vaccines: Does Europe Do Them Better?: The US changes to routine childhood vaccine recommendations are examined alongside Denmark’s model, with expert insight on public health impact and vaccine confidence.

🚀 Speeding China’s Innovation. Plus: Neuro Catalysts and Newcos: The episode looks at China’s new CGT trial rules, neurology milestones to watch, and emerging CNS startups using whole-brain models and neuroplasticity.

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💻 Full Stack Engineer, Apoha: Keen to build software that talks to real machines? You’ll own core systems behind the Liquid Brain®, shaping slick interfaces, backend services, and hardware control while working hands-on with scientists and devices.

🤖 Director of AI/ML Drug Development, Quotient Sciences: Ready to steer AI into real drug decisions? You’ll lead AI-driven programmes, guide multidisciplinary teams, and embed machine learning into how medicines are designed, tested, and scaled.

🩸 Scientist I/II, Bioconjugation, Abzena: Love turning antibodies into precision tools? You’ll design and run bioconjugation experiments, build ADCs, analyse your own data, and present results to teams and clients.

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😷 2-5.02 | SCOPE Summit 2026 | Orlando, USA: Now in its 17th year, SCOPE unites the global clinical research ecosystem for four days of strategy, innovation, and networking.

🥼 7-11.02 | SLAS 2026 | Boston, USA: The SLAS International Conference and Exhibition is the premier annual gathering, bringing together the global life sciences and laboratory automation community for a leading showcase of discovery, innovation, and technology.

🍻 12.02 | Biotech & Beers 2026 | Edinburgh, UK: An agenda-free networking evening hosted by Bionow, bringing together life sciences professionals for informal conversations, community building, and a drink or two.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my fellow readers,

Dry January may be drawing to a close, but biology clearly didn’t get the memo. This week, gut bacteria explain how carbs can turn into alcohol, shingles vaccines show anti-ageing benefits, and finger-prick blood tests edge closer to predicting dementia years in advance. Elsewhere, GSK splashes out on food allergy control, while in the UK a regulatory shift quietly rewrites what’s possible for ultra-rare disease treatment.

Biotech has never been so intoxicating!

Dodo 🦤

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👆Alzheimer’s finger-prick test could help diagnosis (BBC News):  An international trial is testing whether a finger-prick blood test can flag Alzheimer’s risk up to 15 years before symptoms show. The Bio-Hermes-002 study is enrolling more than 1,000 volunteers aged 60+, comparing blood markers linked to amyloid and tau against PET scans and lumbar punctures. Samples can be posted to labs without refrigeration, neatly sidestepping invasive tests that only two in every 100 patients currently receive.

Our take: Earlier diagnosis is clearly the right ambition, but it only works if treatment timelines move with it. Finger-prick testing makes sampling easy, but it risks opening a long, uncomfortable gap between knowing and doing. With most Alzheimer’s drugs aimed at symptomatic disease, people could sit with a warning for years and few routes to therapeutic action. The real win is not just earlier diagnostics, but earlier access to therapy, reimbursement, and care pathways that close the gap rather than widen it.

💉 Shingles vaccine may help keep older people biologically younger (The Times): A study of nearly 4,000 Americans aged 70+ found that vaccinated folks clocked lower chronic inflammation, slower epigenetic and transcriptomic ageing, and better overall biological ageing scores. The effects stuck around in people vaccinated four or more years earlier. The study is observational, so the healthy user effect may be doing some heavy lifting; however, separate research also pegged shingles vaccination to a 24% drop in dementia risk.

Our take: This won’t be replacing your night cream any time soon, but it does blur the line between infection control and long-term health. The signals suggest immune modulation may dampen the low-grade inflammation that drives many diseases of ageing. That reframes vaccines as system-level intervention, rather than one-off protection, and gives ageing research something it rarely enjoys: biological markers that move early enough to be studied properly.

🤑 GSK reaches $2.2bn deal to buy food allergy biotech RAPT (pharmaphorum): New CEO Luke Miels hasn’t wasted time stamping his authority, stumping up $2.2bn for global rights to ozureprubart, an anti-IgE antibody for food allergy prevention. Currently in Phase 2b trials, ozureprubart could allow 12-week dosing, a sharp shift from the biweekly injections required with Xolair, and may work for around 25% of patients who cannot use existing treatments. Phase 2b results are due in 2027.

Our take: No EpiPens here, just fewer injections and less daily friction. Miels’ bet is that adherence, especially in children, decides outcomes long before marginal gains on efficacy curves do. Food allergy management runs on school timetables, clinic slots, and exhausted parents. In paediatric prophylaxis, convenience often determines whether protection exists only on paper or actually holds.

🍺 Study confirms why some people get drunk without touching alcohol (Science Alert): Scientists have confirmed bacteria, not fungi, are the booze-mongers behind auto-brewery syndrome (ABS). In a study of 22 people with the condition, researchers found higher levels of ethanol-producing K. pneumoniae and E. coli in affected people, compared to household controls, with E. coli surging during symptomatic flare-ups. But resetting the microbiome showed promise, with one patient remaining symptom-free for over 16 months after two faecal transplants.

Our take: More than a gut feeling, ethanol production only kicks in under specific conditions, pointing to ABS as a conditional dysbiosis shaped by diet or pH. K. pneumoniae and E. coli are common residents that are not constantly active, which changes the treatment logic. Instead of wiping the microbiome clean, introducing ethanol-gobbling rivals could keep symptoms in check by control rather than eradication.

And finally…

💡 Treatment of a teenager with an ultra-rare condition is a medical milestone (The Economist): After years of campaigning by a mother who lost her daughter to an ultra-rare disorder, a teenage girl with Niemann-Pick disease type C has become the first patient treated under a new UK regulatory framework at Great Ormond Street Hospital. The bespoke antisense oligonucleotide therapy was administered on January 13th, marking the first time a custom-made drug of this kind has been delivered within a formal clinical setting in Britain.

Our take: The word “breakthrough” is used ad nauseam in biotech, but this story earns it. Britain’s MHRA has approved a master protocol for bespoke antisense oligonucleotide drugs targeting fatal genetic brain disorders, effectively regulating the drug-making process, rather than each individual therapy. That flips the economics of ultra-rare diseases: by bundling single-patient tragedies into a shared framework, “ultra-rare” stops meaning commercially unviable and more like something industry can actually build around.

Tune in 🎧

👀 Labiotech’s 15 biopharma companies to watch in 2026: Labiotech journalists Jules Adam, Roohi Peter, and Willow Shah‑Neville reveal their picks for the most exciting biotech players shaping the year ahead.

💭 Christophe Bourdon, LEO Pharma CEO, on dermatology innovation, rare disease and scalable growth: Bourdon shares how LEO Pharma is building durable growth, balancing first-in-class dermatology programmes with rare disease focus and AI-enabled innovation.

🫁 BoB@JPM: Marc Salzberg, M.D., Airway Therapeutics: Salzberg unpacks why bronchopulmonary dysplasia remains overlooked, what he learned from building and selling a CRO, and how Airway is funding late-stage trials.

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🧑‍🔬 Senior Scientist - Downstream Processing, Biotage: Are you an expert in purification and analysis workflows? This role is ideal for a PhD‑level scientist with hands‑on experience in nucleic acid or peptide chemistry, plus a passion for troubleshooting and innovation.

🧫 Product Manager Pharmaceutical Microbiology EMEA, BD: Ready to shape product strategy at the intersection of microbiology and pharma? You’ll be responsible for leading portfolio growth, lifecycle management, and go‑to‑market execution for BD’s Microbiology Industry team.

💰 Senior Business Development Executive, ThermoFisher: Passionate about accelerating growth in sterile drug product innovation? In this role, you’ll partner with strategic accounts to craft and execute tailored value propositions, expanding market reach and client satisfaction.

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🧬 27-29.01 | mRNA-Based Therapeutics Summit Europe | Berlin, Germany: Explore the latest in mRNA, saRNA, and circular RNA innovation – from design to delivery.

🎪 28–29.01 | Festival of Genomics & Biodata | London, UK: The UK’s largest life sciences event – bringing together researchers, clinicians, industry, investors, and policymakers across genomics, biodata, AI, cancer diagnostics, drug discovery, multi-omics, and more.

😷 2-5.02 | SCOPE Summit 2026 | Orlando, USA: Now in its 17th year, SCOPE unites the global clinical research ecosystem for four days of strategy, innovation, and networking.

🥼 7-11.02 | SLAS 2026 | Boston, USA: The SLAS International Conference and Exhibition is the premier annual gathering, bringing together the global life sciences and laboratory automation community for a leading showcase of discovery, innovation, and technology.

🍻 12.02 | Biotech & Beers 2026 | Edinburgh, UK: An agenda-free networking evening hosted by Bionow, bringing together life sciences professionals for informal conversations, community building, and a drink or two.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Greetings from deal season,

Another January, another JPM, and this year platforms and patients took centre stage. Illumina turned up with a disease biology atlas built for scale; AstraZeneca brought oncology AI fully in-house; Genentech explored new ways to keep drug costs from running away; J&J sketched an oncology strategy designed to hold patients across treatment lines; and Basecamp closed things out with gene insertion models that step beyond CRISPR.

Thanks for reading,

Dodo

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🧭 Illumina launches ‘unprecedented’ disease biology atlas (pharmaphorum): The gene-sequencing specialist has set out ambitious plans for its ‘Billion Cell Atlas’, a genome-wide CRISPR perturbation dataset spanning 150M cells across 250 disease-relevant human cell types. Already the largest of its kind globally, the resource is set to scale to 5 billion cells within 3 years and is being rolled out via Illumina’s BioInsight unit, which focuses on data services and discovery partnerships. AstraZeneca, MSD, and Eli Lilly are already using the Atlas for target discovery and AI model training.

Our take: The Atlas trims early discovery risk by letting pharma interrogate perturbation biology without building the labs, cell libraries, and teams themselves. As more programmes draw from the same cellular groundwork, the dataset compounds in value, pushing Illumina beyond instruments and into the role of a standing discovery partner. That shift brings stickier relationships and revenue tied to ongoing scientific throughput, not one-off kit sales.

💰AstraZeneca acquires Modella AI to advance global AI-driven oncology R&D (OncoDaily): AstraZeneca has brought Modella AI fully in-house, formalising a partnership built around multimodal foundation models for biomarker discovery. Modella’s platform – which combines pathology imaging with multi-omic and clinical data – will support biomarker discovery, patient selection, and therapy response prediction across clinical development. AstraZeneca says the technology is aimed squarely at improving decision-making in trials, rather than early target discovery, and will now be deployed across its global oncology pipeline.

Our take: This is a wager on patient stratification as the pressure point in oncology development. Trial costs swell when response varies wildly across patients, and late surprises are brutally expensive. Models that surface likely responders earlier can keep programmes tidy before budgets and timelines run away. By pulling Modella fully in-house, AstraZeneca gets to train these systems on its own trial data, sharpening signal quality while keeping hard-won clinical know-how out of shared vendor pools.

💊 Genentech CEO says switch from one of the largest PBMs will save the company millions (Endpoints): The Roche subsidiary has moved its pharmacy benefits to Rightway, a privately held PBM startup, in a deal covering roughly 25,000 employees and dependents. CEO Ashley Magargee said the switch is projected to save about $70M through 2028 and halt the company’s 13% annual increases in pharmacy costs. Instead of a rebate-driven formulary, Genentech worked with Rightway to build an evidence-based one, and has explicitly confirmed its own drugs receive no preferential treatment.

Our take: Genentech is turning PBM reform into a live experiment rather than a lobbying slogan. Running an alternative model at employee scale generates hard cost data for legislative scrutiny. If Rightway delivers the projected savings, it strengthens the case that rebate-driven formularies inflate costs. If it underperforms, pharma weakens its own critique. Either way, the outcome feeds directly into the regulatory fight, making this an unusually high-stakes move for what should be a routine benefits switch.

🎗️J&J reveals oncology strategy (Pharmaceutical Technology): J&J expects oncology to clock $50B in sales by 2030, with multiple myeloma contributing roughly half of that haul. The combination drug Darzalex/Faspro (daratumumab) is the main revenue driver, propped up by bispecifics Tecvaley and Talvey, and cell therapy Carvykti across later lines. Beyond myeloma, J&J is advancing a trispecific TCE (ramantamig), partnering with Kelonia on in vivo CAR-T, and is advancing Rybrevant/Lacluze in EGFR+ lung cancer alongside Inlexzo in bladder cancer.

Our take: J&J is shoring up its portfolio to own the entire treatment journey, not individual regimens, keeping patients inside the franchise for years. Darzalex anchors early lines, bispecific TCEs cover relapse, and Carvykti captures late-stage disease. Bets on trispecific and in vivo CAR-T extend that grip further still, closing the gaps before competitors can elbow their way in.

And finally…

🏕️ Basecamp Research unveils programmable gene insertion AI models, as it confirms Nvidia investment (Tech.eu): The UK startup says its latest AI models can design large, programmable gene insertions using genomics data gathered directly from global biodiversity. Trained on Nvidia GPUs, the models learn the language of DNA to design pathogen-killing peptides with 97–100% lab accuracy, targeting edits beyond CRISPR’s practical limits. Basecamp also announced that Nvidia’s NVentures has invested in its pre-Series C round on undisclosed terms. The company has raised $85M to date.

Our take: Basecamp’s models tackle large gene insertions, which CRISPR typically struggles with due to delivery and payload constraints. Current gene editing tools excel at small tweaks, but thousands of monogenic diseases require whole functional genes that simply will not fit inside standard AAV vectors. The feather in its cap? Genomics data physically collected from global biodiversity, rather than lifted from databases, captures evolutionary patterns competitors can’t replicate without field expeditions. The dataset becomes the advantage, not the architecture.

Tune in 🎧

🎸 D.A. Wallach Explains Why Biotech VC Is So Different: From indie rock to drug development, this episode explores why biotech investing plays by different rules, what it takes to back real medicines, and how science, risk, and time reshape venture capital.

📉 Why the AI Bubble Hasn’t Popped: Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz, joins Ed Elson to unpack the 2025 market. He explains why earnings growth might hold, and suggests that young investors should welcome the next correction.

🤖 Tech in 2026: Inside the AI bubble: The FT’s tech team weighs in on what’s coming for AI, from VC funding jitters to LLM limitations to workplace shakeups. With Murad Ahmed, Melissa Heikkilä, George Hammond, and Sarah O’Connor.

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🧪 Research Scientist in Antibody Discovery, RxBiologics: Phage display pro? Join the Babraham-based team to isolate antibodies, master characterisation assays, and drive drug discovery programmes in a high-growth, hands-on lab environment.

🧬 CAR-T Production Supervisor, Legend Biotech: Master of the cleanroom? Lead operational teams in Ghent to manufacture life-saving cell therapies, ensuring strict cGMP compliance and driving operational excellence in a state-of-the-art ATMP facility.

💻 Computational Protein Design, Latent Labs: Protein design visionary? Join this London-based moonshot to bridge generative AI and synthetic biology, leveraging proprietary frontier models to engineer functional proteins and drive high-impact therapeutic discoveries.

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🧪 19.01 | BioSeed | London, UK: A one‑day event where cutting‑edge early‑stage life science companies pitch for seed investment and connect directly with a broad network of active sector investors.

🧬 27-29.01 | mRNA-Based Therapeutics Summit Europe | Berlin, Germany: Explore the latest in mRNA, saRNA, and circular RNA innovation – from design to delivery.

🍽️ 29.01 | BIA Gala Dinner | London, UK: This is your chance to dine in an iconic venue with 760+ of life science’s finest, whilst having the opportunity to fundraise for our new charity partner of the year 2026.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my fellow mind readers…

The new year has started with sleep playing Mystic Meg as a new AI programme turns a single night’s data into predictions of future stroke, heart attack, and cancer risk; a hot flush treatment finds a second life in breast cancer; CRISPR moves beyond DNA to shut down flu at the RNA level; written in the stars is the patent cliff with big pharma buying for the future, and Amgen commits nearly a billion dollars to an oncology bet it wants secured early.

What Dodo wishes is that someone had predicted just how much brie is too much over the festive period, but that’s a story for another time…

Dodo

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😴 Scientists decode sleep patterns to forecast your future health risk (Study Finds): A bad night’s sleep may mean more than an early morning coffee run. Stanford researchers have built an AI model, SleepFM, using full polysomnography data from more than 65,000 people to estimate future risk for 130 conditions. By combining brain activity, heart rhythms, breathing and muscle signals, it learns recurring overnight patterns that correlate with disease risk years before diagnosis.

Our take: A single night wired up to polysomnography predicted mortality risk with 84% accuracy and threw up similarly strong signals for dementia, heart attack and stroke. Sleep appears to compress multiple physiological systems into a stress-tested state, where early regulatory failures surface before symptoms appear elsewhere. The catch is whether this depth of signal can ever be captured outside expensive, fiddly sleep labs.

🥵 Hot flush treatment has anti-breast cancer activity, study finds (Cancer Research UK): Things are getting hot under the collar as a Cambridge clinical trial found that low-dose megestrol acetate, used to ease hot flushes in breast cancer patients, may also curb tumour growth. The PIONEER trial showed that pairing megestrol with standard anti-oestrogen treatment, letrozole, slowed cancer cell growth more effectively over a two-week window.

Our take: Progesterone and progestins have been under suspicion for years in breast cancer due to HRT concerns. This trial suggests progesterone signalling can suppress certain tumours rather than feed them. The win is dual utility, managing side effects that drive patients off treatment while improving outcomes. This HRT-tastic solution shows overlooked drugs sometimes just need better biology to make sense.

🧬 CRISPR Discovery Could Lead to Single Diagnostic Test for COVID, Flu, RSVs (Utah State University): The winter flu season is well underway (even Dodo caught that cold that’s going around), but it seems we may finally be able to ditch the Kleenex. A CRISPR mechanism has been discovered in Utah that stops viruses dead without touching DNA. The RNA-targeting enzyme Cas12a3 chops the ‘tails’ off transfer RNAs, halting a previously unknown viral protein production, while keeping host genomes intact.

Our take: Most people still associate CRISPR with Cas9 cutting DNA to fix or break genes. Cas12a3 is doing something more subtle and arguably more elegant: shutting down viral replication by sabotaging tRNA translation. That precision makes it useful for diagnostics, where detecting multiple pathogens simultaneously has always required running multiple tests. CRISPR might find its first mass-market role in a winter flu swab. Chicken soup, anyone?

🤑 Big Pharma race to snap up biotech assets as $170 billion patent cliff looms (CNBC): Facing hundreds of billions in losses as blockbusters like Ozempic, Keytruda and Eliquis go off-patent, Big Pharma is on a biotech buying spree. Pfizer’s $10B victory over Novo Nordisk for obesity start-up Metsera signals a fierce battle for obesity, oncology and neuro assets. Analysts are predicting 2026 will be a M&A frenzy, fuelled by falling interest rates and biotech’s post-2025 valuation rebound.

Our take: The patent cliff is biopharma’s recurring extinction event. As such, the next few years could define which pharma giants reinvent themselves and which get left in the dustbin of history. About half of the blockbuster drugs approved between 2014 and 2023 were bought rather than developed internally, which tells you something about how well internal R&D keeps pace with the patent cycle. The $170B cliff now looming has pharma hunting mid-stage assets where bidding wars can still be avoided.

And finally…

💰Amgen buys Dark Blue Therapeutics in $840m oncology deal (Pharm Tech): The California giant has snapped up Dark Blue Therapeutics, securing DBT‑3757, a first-in-class protein degrader targeting the myeloid drivers MLLT1 and MLLT3 in acute myeloid leukaemia. With IND trials set to begin, the drug offers promise both as monotherapy and in combination regimens. The deal marks Amgen’s first major acquisition since its $27.8B Horizon buyout, alongside a $618m DISCO oncology licence.

Our take: Protein degraders have moved beyond PROTAC hype into clinical reality, offering deeper target engagement than inhibitors alone. Amgen’s early bet on MLLT1/3 could pay off in a challenging AML market, where survival rates barely exceed 30%. By anchoring its oncology pipeline around next-generation degraders, this move could mark the next pharmacological frontier.

Tune in 🎧

💡 M Ventures: pharma CVC and biotech innovation in 2026: With more than 20 years in life science investing, Hakan Goker, Managing Director of M Ventures, offers fresh perspectives on 2026’s dealmaking climate, AI‑driven discovery, and the next wave of therapeutic breakthroughs.

🧠 An effort to detect and treat alzheimer’s at its earliest stages: Founder and CEO Valerie Daggett to discuss how AltPep is tackling Alzheimer’s disease at its roots, developing synthetic peptide therapeutics and companion diagnostics that recognise and neutralise the earliest molecular triggers of amyloid pathology.

💉 Kate Haviland on following the science to precision immunology: Former CEO Kate Haviland reflects on steering Blueprint Medicines from precision oncology roots to a precision immunology powerhouse, culminating in its blockbuster 2025 acquisition by Sanofi for up to $9.5 billion.

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🧑‍🔬Senior Scientist/Principal Scientist AI/ML, Maxion Therapeutics: Passionate about protein design? Lead development of generative AI and computational models to engineer next‑generation therapeutic antibodies and KnotBody® molecules.

📔 Associate Director Global Regulatory CMC - Development, Discover International: Skilled in steering global CMC strategies? Lead regulatory submissions and ensure compliance across product development programmes. Combine deep expertise in pharma manufacturing and CMC docs to keep innovation audit‑ready.

✍️ Associate Director, Regulatory Affairs, KalVista Pharmaceuticals, Inc: Ready to shape global regulatory strategy? Lead and guide submissions across international markets, driving pre‑ and post‑approval activities to support the commercialisation of KalVista’s therapies outside the US.

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🏥 12-15.01 | 44th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference | San Francisco, California: The industry’s largest and most influential gathering uniting healthcare leaders, high‑growth innovators, tech pioneers, and investors to shape the future of healthcare investment and innovation.

🧪 19.01 | BioSeed | London, UK: BioSeed is a one‑day event where cutting‑edge early‑stage life science companies pitch for seed investment and connect directly with a broad network of active sector investors.

🧬 27-29.01 | mRNA-Based Therapeutics Summit Europe | Berlin, Germany: Explore the latest in mRNA, saRNA, and circular RNA innovation from design to delivery.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Season’s greetings, my radioactive reindeers,

This week’s stocking is heavy with biotech treats: the UK fires up its nuclear infrastructure to fuel the next wave of precision cancer therapies, Labiotech’s 2025 recap exposes a divide between those building the pipes and those circling the drain, Europe’s long-awaited Biotech Act lands with a thud, analysts offer cautious cheer for 2026, and a tiny appetite protein explains why some of us keep drifting back to the cheeseboard.

Until the sleigh bells ring,

Father Dodo 🎅🏼

If there’s anything you’d like to see in future editions of Biotech Dodo, send us a message.

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☢️ UK nuclear revolution powers next-generation precision cancer therapies (NIA): The UK is investing £18.8M to turn recycled nuclear fuel into a dependable source of lead-212 for targeted alpha therapies, a precision approach designed to destroy cancer cells while keeping damage to healthy tissue to a minimum. Led by UKNNL and Medicines Discovery Catapult, the programme connects isotope extraction, radiochemistry and early clinical development, laying the groundwork for clinical trials and patient access.

Our take: Lead-212 has been creeping up oncology Christmas lists as targeted alpha therapies gather pace, yet supply has remained patchy and tightly rationed. Only a small club of countries can produce it at the volumes and consistency that clinical programmes demand. By hard-wiring nuclear infrastructure directly into the drug development pipeline, the UK is converting a longstanding bottleneck into a strategic advantage.

⌛ Biotech in 2025: A retrospective (Labiotech): This year marked a phase shift as GLP-1s tightened their grip on the market, AI settled into lab work, and radiopharmaceuticals moved from niche to core portfolio strategy. On the finance side, capital stayed choosy, Europe looked threadbare, and M&A in Q3 & Q4 started to resemble frantic Christmas Eve shopping, with big pharma panic-buying assets to wrap up.

Our take: 2025 neatly sorted biotech into two piles: companies building the boring plumbing that lets therapies scale, and companies being dismantled for parts. The winners understood that manufacturing supply, trial-ready datasets and software that holds up under real-world conditions matter more than swanky pitch decks. Mid-caps, meanwhile, spent the year trying to survive – often being picked over like Christmas leftovers on Boxing Day.

🇪🇺 European Commission unveils EU Biotech Act as it lags behind other countries (Endpoints): The first half of the EU Biotech Act has finally landed, promising speedier cross-border trials, extended IP protection and fresh manufacturing support. A €10bn health biotech pilot with the European Investment Bank aims to keep startups and mid-sized outfits afloat through 2027, as Europe wrestles with the fact it’s pulled just 7% of global health biotech venture capital over the past decade.

Our take: Europe tends to lose biotechs when early promise collides with the need for serious capital, GMP manufacturing and coordinated, multi-country regulation. Too often, European investors finance biotech as a short sprint to partnership rather than a decade-long grind through development, while US funds write bigger cheques, tolerate longer timelines, and stay for follow-on rounds. The Act addresses real structural gaps, but lands in a market where many companies have already hung their stockings on US chimneys.

📈 2026 outlook: Biotech poised to outperform bear markets of ‘21–24, analyst says (Fierce Biotech): After a bruising start to the year, biotech staged a sharp comeback. The XBI fell 20% early on, bottomed out in April, then rebounded nearly 75% to levels not seen since 2021. William Blair thinks that recovery can carry into 2026, as long as good clinical data continues to be rewarded and drug launches avoid heavy-handed pricing intervention. Deal-making also picked up, with 2025 logging the highest M&A volume in a decade, even if headline deal sizes stayed modest.

Our take: The 75% rally ran on psychology more than fundamentals. Investors spent three years pricing in disaster scenarios – aggressive pricing caps, vaccine programmes being dismantled, and the FDA losing scientific credibility. The sector is now climbing because catastrophe looks avoidable rather than inevitable, which sets an unusually low bar for 2026. Simply keeping the reindeer pulling the sleigh now counts as solid performance.

And finally…

🧀 This tiny protein helps control how hungry you feel (ScienceDaily): Researchers have identified MRAP2, a helper protein required for proper signalling by MC3R, a receptor involved in appetite and energy use. Cell studies show MC3R signalling strengthens only when MRAP2 is present in the right balance. Mutations in MRAP2, already linked to obesity, disrupt this support and weaken appetite control even when the receptor itself is intact.

Our take: Appetite regulation turns out to be a committee operation, with helper proteins deciding whether hunger signals actually get through the door. That helps explain why appetite drugs work unevenly across patients – the underlying machinery differs from one person to the next. It’s a reminder that biology rarely works solo, preferring the whole ensemble to be present and correct. Sadly, even the most disciplined signalling network won’t keep Dodo away from the Christmas cheeseboard and mince pies.

Tune in 🎧

🛠️ How to Successfully Build and Exit a MedTech: Ray Cohen shares lessons from a $3.7B exit and Dr. Sarah Matt discusses her new book, The Borderless Healthcare Revolution.

💬 Introducing Voices of Innovation: Hosted by Cecilia from The Catalytic Site, Voices of Innovation is a new podcast that discusses behind the scenes of early-stage biotech – the people, the science and the careers you can build.

🧬 Jonathan Gluck: A personal account of navigating myeloma and CAR-T therapy: Writer Jonathan shares his 20-year journey with multiple myeloma, from the early days of treatment to receiving CAR-T therapy, and reflects on what it means to live – and write – through chronic uncertainty.

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🧪 Technical Account Representative, GenScript: Enjoy talking science as much as running experiments? Translate lab know-how into tailored solutions, support customers end-to-end, and bridge bench science with real-world biotech projects.

✈️ Senior CRA, ICON: Comfortable living out of a suitcase? Oversee global trial sites; safeguard data and patient safety; support investigators; and keep complex studies compliant, consistent and moving forward.

⚗️ Senior Research Scientist – Chromatographic Bioanalysis, Charles River: Love clean peaks and tidy data? Lead regulated bioanalysis studies, validate methods, mentor scientists, and ensure high-quality results that stand up to GLP and GCP scrutiny.

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🧬 12–14.01 | The Biotech Showcase | San Francisco, USA: The programme offers in-depth panels and discussions with leading experts, investors, and innovators exploring the most transformative trends shaping the future of biotech.

🧑‍⚕️ 12–15.01 | J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference | San Francisco, USA: The industry’s largest and most influential healthcare investment event, JPM will bring together global leaders, fast-growing companies, technology innovators, and the investment community.

🐝 22.01 | Accelerating Innovation: Access support to solve real-world challenges | Manchester, UK: A University of Manchester event connecting researchers and industry to fast-track solutions through collaboration.

🤝 24.01 | London Entrepreneurs Network | London, UK: A networking evening for life science founders, pharma professionals, and investors to exchange ideas and build partnerships.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.

Hello, my fellow Franken-foodies!

This week’s biotech menu includes a gene therapy rescuing patients from once-incurable blood cancer, a fertility scandal with far-reaching consequences, growing links between water pollution and Parkinson’s, fresh billions flowing into UK life sciences, and fungi being groomed as the next great chicken substitute.

Fancy some fungal fried chicken?

Dodo

If there’s anything you’d like to see in future editions of Biotech Dodo, send us a message.

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🩸New therapy offers lifeline to ‘incurable’ blood cancer patients (The Times): A new gene therapy has reversed an aggressive form of leukaemia once thought untreatable. Developed by Great Ormond Street Hospital and UCL, BE-CAR7 rewires donor immune cells using base editing to target hard-to-treat leukaemia. In clinical trials, nearly two-thirds of patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) remained cancer-free three years on, including Alyssa Tapley, the world’s first recipient at 13, now a thriving 16-year-old aspiring scientist.

Our take: BE-CAR7 tackles a form of leukaemia that standard CAR-T cannot, because the cancer arises in T-cells themselves. By using ‘universal’ donor cells, the therapy avoids this bottleneck, achieving deep remissions in more than 80% of patients after a single infusion, while also being faster to produce and easier to scale. The technique behind it is base editing, which allows donor T-cells to function after chemotherapy without triggering immune rejection. Off-the-shelf cell therapy may finally be within reach.

👶 Sperm from a donor with a cancer-causing gene was used to conceive almost 200 children (BBC News): A European sperm donor, carrying an undetected cancer-causing mutation, has been linked to 197 children across 14 countries. Around 20% of the donor’s sperm carried a TP53 mutation, known as Li-Fraumeni syndrome, which gives carriers up to a 90% lifetime risk of developing cancer. Although the donor passed standard screening, Denmark’s European Sperm Bank has acknowledged that donor usage limits were breached in some countries.

Our take: Fertility has quietly shifted into a global distribution model with fragmented oversight and strong commercial incentives. In this environment, a rare genetic liability does not require negligence to spread, only repetition, allowing a small biological risk to scale into a system-wide failure. Importantly, experts emphasise that cases like this are extremely rare, and donor conception via licensed clinics remains highly screened and safe.

💦 Scientists thought Parkinson’s was in our genes. It might be in the water. (Wired): After decades chasing genetic culprits, researchers are finding that Parkinson’s may stem from environmental toxins lurking in our water supplies. Chemicals like trichloroethylene (TCE) and pesticides in contaminated water are emerging as major suspects, with studies linking exposure to sharply higher disease risks. Marines exposed to TCE-laced water faced a 70% higher risk, while lab mice inhaling it developed significant cognitive damage linked to Parkinson’s.

Our take: This latest line of evidence in Parkinson’s research connects two long-disconnected dots, environmental factors and neurodegeneration. While genetics explains a small slice of cases (10–15%), industrial pollutants are leaving millions vulnerable to Parkinson’s triggers. It seems there’s something in the water, and it points to a serious policy response: namely better systems for tracking chemical exposures and shifting funding towards environmental clean-up.

💰 British Business Bank backs biotech fund with £75m commitment (UK Tech News): The British Business Bank has placed its biggest bet yet on life sciences, investing tens of millions in SV Health Investors’ new SV8 Biotech Fund. This cements the Bank’s pivotal role in the UK’s life sciences superpower agenda, lifting total sector commitments to £560m across 15 funds. SV8 will back next-gen therapeutics firms, building on SV Health’s £87m Series D for Cambridge’s Artios.

Our take: This is a bold vote of confidence in UK biotech, but sustaining that momentum will take more than early-stage capital. SV Health Investors has a track record of spinning cutting-edge science into commercial success, yet the missing link remains growth-stage investment. To nurture globally competitive biotech, the UK must draw in more private co-investors ready to shoulder the risk and share the rewards.

And finally…

🍗 Lab-grown fungus ‘meat’ could be cheaper chicken substitute, scientists say (The Independent): Clucking hell! Scientists from China have bioengineered Fusarium venenatum, the same species behind Quorn, into an enhanced strain called FCPD. It provides a sustainable alternative to chicken which mimics meat’s natural texture and flavour, without the farmyard footprint. By deleting genes for two enzymes, they’ve slimmed the cell walls for denser protein packing and an increased metabolism, slashing sugar needs by 44% and ramping up production by 88%.

Our take: The precision-editing approach avoids introducing foreign DNA, helps sidestep longstanding GMO concerns, and reduces the energy demands associated with cultured meat. Rather cleverly, the protein gains come from reshaping the fungal cell itself, improving its structure and efficiency rather than relying on forcing intensive growth. Naturally, Dodo supports any protein that spares the feathered cousins. Definitely an option worth keeping an eye on.

Tune in 🎧

🦀 Diakonos Oncology on reprogramming cancer immunity breakthrough AI: Biotech 2050 host Alok Tayi speaks with Diakonos Oncology President and COO Jay Hartenbach about a highly disciplined approach to reshaping cancer immunotherapy.

🧑‍🔬 Engineering B cells with Immusoft’s Sean Ainsworth: Immusoft’s CEO reflects on his path from scientist to founder, and discusses how engineered B cell therapies could replace lifelong enzyme infusions.

🧪 Determining the cause and severity of sepsis with a point-of-care test: Inflammatix CEO Tim Sweeney explains how the TriVerity test uses gene expression signatures to identify infection type and assess sepsis risk in real time.

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🥼 Regulatory Affairs Manager, Quotient Sciences: Love navigating the maze of MHRA, HRA, and ethics approvals? Key tasks include leading regulatory submissions for phase 1–2 clinical trials across Quotient’s Nottingham unit and NHS sites.

🤑 Business Development Manager, SynGenSys Limited: Do you thrive at the intersection of science and sales? Help drive growth across biopharma, CGT, and academic sectors by spotting opportunities, shaping partnerships, and closing high-impact deals.

🔬 Scientific Operations Manager, Ellison Institute of Technology, Oxford: Interested in turning scientific blueprints into thriving labs? In this role, you’ll design, build, and run cutting-edge research facilities that meet GxP, ISO, and HTA standards.

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🧬 12-14 January | The Biotech Showcase | San Francisco, USA: The program offers in-depth panels and discussions with leading experts, investors, and innovators exploring the most transformative trends shaping the future of biotech.

🧑‍⚕️ 12-15 January | J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference | San Francisco, USA: This leading conference is the industry’s largest and most influential healthcare investment event, bringing together global leaders, fast-growing companies, technology innovators, and the investment community.

Got news, jobs or events you think are worth coo-ing over? Post an event here, or email us at biotechdodo@substack.com!

We’re SomX – a communications and creative agency trusted by biotech, pharma and healthtech pioneers. We craft strategy, content, PR and design that translate complex biology into compelling stories and investor‑ready excitement. Get in touch to amplify your science beyond the lab bench.