Hello, you flightless Dodo fans,

Just a short note to let you know that, sadly, Dodo is sick this week, so there is no issue today. Regular programming will resume next week. 🦤

That being said, I daren’t let anyone down, so here’s a podcast for your listening pleasure – enjoy!

Thanks all,

Belle

Hello my trottered tribe,

It’s been a piggin’ week in the world of biotech, with new therapies rooting out childhood brain cancer, porcine kidney transplants keeping patients off dialysis for a record nine months, Google DeepMind snuffling through a human DNA map in search of disease cures, fat jabs helping asthma patients breathe easier, and AI toilets analysing gut health from poo like a pig in muck.

Don’t hog the headlines!

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Biotech’s next frontier

Genomic medicine is at an inflection point. What comes next has even the sceptics feeling hopeful

Learn more

Discover 🔍

👶 BrainChild hauls in $116M to make cell therapies for childhood brain cancers (BioPharma Dive): BrainChild Bio has secured a bumper raise to push its CAR-T therapy for DIPG, an almost always fatal childhood brainstem cancer, into a pivotal Phase 2 trial. The Seattle Children’s Hospital spinout’s B7-H3-targeted treatment is infused directly into the brain’s fluid, skipping chemotherapy conditioning, and can be given in multiple doses. A second, triple-target CAR-T for glioblastoma enters first-in-human trials next year.

Our take: Skipping conditioning does more than spare children a round of chemotherapy; conventional CAR-T is a one-and-done treatment, whereas BrainChild’s therapy can be dosed again through an implanted reservoir. Few companies have tried this at all – the prejudice, as founder Michael Jensen puts it, being that the brain would be intolerant to having cells directly administered. Primary completion isn’t until 2028, so whether that prejudice is justified remains to be seen.

🐷 Pig-to-human kidney transplantation hits a new milestone (Pharmaphorum): A genetically engineered pig kidney has kept a patient dialysis-free for a record 271 days, and he has since received a human donor organ. The eGenesis EGEN-2784 kidney marks the first use of xenotransplantation as a bridge to transplantation. Five patients have now received a pig kidney, two of whom have since gone on to human donor kidneys, while an FDA-cleared 33-patient RESTORE trial will test whether pig kidneys can become a scalable answer to the donor shortage. (Read the Lancet paper)

Our take: Xenotransplantation may become a queue-management technology before it becomes a cure. The most immediate clinical opportunity may not be permanent pig-organ replacement, but using xenotransplants to reshape transplant waiting lists. If pig kidneys can reliably keep patients off dialysis for months, they could buffer the sickest or hardest-to-match patients, changing how scarce human kidneys are allocated and potentially reducing deaths while waiting.

🧠 Google DeepMind maps human DNA in quest to cure ‘all disease’ (The Times): Google DeepMind has built AlphaGenome Atlas, an AI tool predicting the effects of roughly nine billion possible single-letter changes to human DNA. Free for academic researchers, it’s designed to help scientists spot disease-causing mutations hidden among millions of variants. It has already flagged a previously missed mutation as the likely cause of severe epilepsy in a young child, pointing to a faster route from genome sequencing to diagnosis and drug discovery.

Our take: DeepMind is quietly moving upstream in the pharmaceutical value chain. AlphaFold helped researchers understand proteins, which sit close to drug targets, and AlphaGenome Atlas moves even further back, helping decipher which genetic changes are worthy of further research. That gives DeepMind potential influence over the earliest stages of target discovery, patient stratification and disease definition, and makes its AI increasingly embedded in pharma’s drug pipelines.

🫁 Patients with asthma using this weight loss drug ‘may have fewer attacks’ (The Independent): A major UK real-world study into semaglutide, presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress, suggests that metabolic drugs could have unexpected benefits for lung disease. Researchers found that people with asthma taking the drug had nearly 40% fewer attacks, while COPD flare-ups fell by around 20%. The effect was strongest in people with more severe asthma and at higher doses.

Our take: Semaglutide could expose obesity as a hidden driver of “difficult” asthma. The fact that the sickest patients benefit most suggests that some treatment-resistant respiratory disease could actually be due to metabolic inflammation. That could push asthma care towards more deliberate phenotyping of obesity, insulin resistance and systemic inflammation, rather than simply escalating inhaled therapies.

And finally…

💩 Smart toilets are already using AI to analyse your poop (Wired): AI-powered toilet cameras from Kohler Health and Throne are turning one of the most private parts of daily life into a new stream of health data. Their devices clip onto the toilet, recording bowel movements and using AI to analyse stool consistency, colour and urine characteristics, which the companies claim delivers personalised gut-health reports within minutes. Kohler’s device already alerts users to blood in the bowl, while Throne says a next-generation version could pick up blood invisible to the eye within two years – though both stop short of promising a diagnosis.

Our take: A single stool profile tells you very little, but months of individual baseline data could reveal deviations that standard testing would never pick up. Someone managing Crohn’s disease, where clinicians often request stool diaries but patients rarely keep them, could certainly benefit. For the average user, however, $400 (plus an annual subscription) is a lot to pay for something their own eyes could tell them.

Tune in 🎧

🧬 How Evox Therapeutics is targeting CNS diseases with exosomes: The UK biotech's chief executive on why its delivery platform is moving past RNA and biologics into CRISPR-based gene editing.

💰 Funding a virtual biotech without institutional capital with Sarcomatrix’s David Craig: Why the traditional playbook no longer fits a selective funding environment, and how alternative routes such as Regulation D offerings can keep a lean company moving.

🦀 Engineering T-cell engagers for solid cancers: Deck Bio’s chief executive on building multi-target engagers to reach more cancer cells, give tumours fewer ways to escape, and leave healthy tissue alone.

Apply ✍️

💬 Communication Manager, AbbVie: Fancy shaping how one of the world’s biggest pharma companies is seen in the UK? You’ll plan and execute external, corporate, digital and internal campaigns, working across External Affairs, commercial, medical affairs and market access.

🤑 Account Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific: Ready to drive commercial growth across analytical instruments, consumables and services? In this account-focused role, you’ll sell and support the chromatography and mass spectrometry portfolio, build long-lasting customer relationships and develop strategic growth opportunities.

🤝 Head of Growth & Partnerships, Optima Partners: Passionate about turning specialist data science, AI, bioinformatics and translational research capability into funded client engagements across global life sciences? You’ll co-lead commercial strategy, shape compelling propositions and drive sustainable revenue growth.

RSVP 📆

🔬 21–25.09 | Life Sciences Week 2026 | Birmingham, UK: A five-day national programme bringing together biotech, medtech, pharma, academia and investors around cutting-edge research, AI in biotech/med-tech and the future of UK healthcare innovation.

🧫 29.09 | BioForward 2026 | Didcot, UK: A free event at Harwell Science and Innovation Campus connecting research scientists and R&D companies with the CROs, clinical services, digital and legal providers they depend on.

💷 01.10 | BioCap 2026 | Macclesfield, UK: A one-day conference at Alderley Park on the life sciences funding landscape, with panels on investment trends and an investors’ mixer the evening before.

🤖 13.10 | TechBio UK | London, UK: The BioIndustry Association’s flagship techbio gathering, convening biotech, pharma, tech and investment leaders around data and AI, genomics and engineering biology.

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 early adopters,

This week: ‘superhuman’ AI can spot heart disease from ECG scans, three deaths halt Novartis’s autoimmune CAR-T trials, a congressional task force warns that China’s faster and cheaper trials are pulling research off US soil, Lilly spends $2.9B on a platform that strips out disease-causing antibodies, and UK spin-outs keep leaving because there is nowhere at home to scale up.

Try to keep up!

Dodo

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

Discover 🔍

🤖 ‘Superhuman’ AI tool spots heart disease in less than 2 seconds (The Guardian): Researchers at Imperial College London have built an AI tool that reads routine ECGs in seconds, extracting more detail than the human eye can see to flag heart failure and valve disease. Trained on millions of ECGs, the tool identified up to 81% of heart failure cases and up to 90% of valve disease cases in a 67,000-patient US trial, offering earlier triage ahead of specialist echocardiogram scans.

Our take: ECGs, which record electrical activity in the heart, can spot heart attacks and abnormal rhythms but cannot detect heart disease...until now. Diagnosing it typically involves an echocardiogram, which is expensive, specialist-dependent and often backlogged by months. ECGs, by contrast, are one of the most common tests in medicine. This ‘superhuman’ tech could therefore pick up heart disease alongside routine care at almost no additional outlay, shortening the wait for those already in the queue and finding cases in people who might otherwise be missed.

💀 Novartis halts autoimmune CAR-T trials after 3 deaths, as BMS also pauses studies (Fierce Biotech): Novartis has paused eight trials of its CD19 CAR-T therapy rap-cel in autoimmune and neurological diseases, after three patients died from a severe inflammatory reaction. Bristol Myers Squibb has separately halted enrolment in autoimmune trials of its own CD19 CAR-T, zola-cel, after transient, reversible inflammatory events. Both therapies use rapid manufacturing platforms, and analysts suspect faster production may be driving stronger T-cell expansion – and greater toxicity.

Our take: Severe inflammatory reactions are a recognised, and lethal, hazard of CAR-T. In blood cancer, where patients have usually run out of other options, that has been treated as a price worth paying (the fact that Novartis is continuing its rap-cel cancer trials speaks directly to this). However, autoimmune patients face a different predicament; non-terminal, and often with other treatment options to fall back on, they leave regulators and doctors willing to tolerate far less risk. Finding out what is causing these reactions – the manufacturing, the dose, or the patients themselves – is key to CAR-T ever reaching beyond cancer.

🇨🇳 China poses an increasing security risk as the US biotech innovation edge erodes (BioSpace): According to a congressional task force, China overtook the US in clinical trial numbers six years ago, and has since pulled ahead on R&D funding and translational science. The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology warns that this leaves America exposed and dependent on a strategic rival for life-sustaining medicines should relations sour, with faster, cheaper Chinese trials also drawing early-stage research away from US soil.

Our take: Currently, the US is highly dependent on Chinese CDMOs and reagents, making this an infrastructure risk, rather than a scientific one. The BIOSECURE Act’s “companies of concern” rules, law since December 2025, will require federally funded labs and contractors to strip out Chinese equipment and services, but US domestic manufacturing capacity isn’t ready to absorb that shift. Expect stranded programmes and cost spikes long before any fix arrives.

💰 Lilly adds to immune drug pipeline with $2.9B Merida buyout (BioPharma Dive): Eli Lilly is acquiring Merida Biosciences in a multi-billion-dollar deal focused on its precision autoantibody-degradation platform, headlined by MER511, which is currently in Phase 1 for Graves’ disease. Rather than broadly suppressing the immune system, Merida’s biologics tag disease-causing autoantibodies for clearance while preserving healthy immune function. It’s Lilly’s third immunology acquisition of 2026, following buyouts of Ventyx Biosciences and Orna Therapeutics.

Our take: Graves’ disease is turning into a crowded contest for anything that strips pathogenic antibodies from the blood – FcRn blockers, TRAb antagonists, and now Merida’s degrader. But mechanism won’t decide the winner; durability will. Whoever can deliver lasting remission without leaving patients immunocompromised, or relapsing the moment dosing stops, takes the therapeutic and commercial prize. Lilly is betting it gets there first.

And finally…

🔬 UK science breakthroughs are being exploited overseas, minister says (The Times): Science minister Chris McDonald has warned that world-class UK research keeps being commercialised overseas, because university spin-outs can’t find enough growth capital, industrial lab space or scale-up infrastructure at home. He pointed to critical minerals firms built on British research that had to relocate to the US or elsewhere to scale up, and has called for greater private investment and expanded Catapult innovation centres to close the gap.

Our take: The UK’s real weakness may be the middle of its innovation system. Britain has strong universities and generous early-stage research funding, but very little support to carry a discovery from invention to commercialisation. The shortage isn’t simply venture capital; it’s industrial lab space, pilot facilities and translational centres, which matter every bit as much as the money.

Tune in 🎧

🏆 Picking biotech winners beyond the hype cycle with Andera Partners’ Olivier Litzka: A veteran European investor discusses how companies secure funding, keep focus and survive execution risk, plus the push to deepen Europe’s public markets.

🦠 Resetting severe allergies at their cellular source: Allergene AI Therapeutics Founder & CEO on the case for using mRNA and lipid nanoparticles to deliver CAR-T more simply and to far more patients, and what it will take to get there.

💉 The history and science behind GLP1 receptor agonists: From lizard venom to the world’s biggest-selling drugs, a reminder of how far basic research travels.

Apply ✍️

🧑‍🔬 Scientific Affairs Manager, Rhythm Pharmaceuticals: Ready to advance medical and scientific initiatives in rare MC4R pathway diseases? You’ll provide the scientific and medical leadership behind integrated tactical and engagement plans.

✅ Head of Quality, Smart4 Sciences: Interested in leading QA and QC functions, driving site-wide quality strategy in a regulated manufacturing environment? You’ll own the Quality Management System and lead the QA/QC teams, acting as primary MHRA contact and keeping manufacturing, licensing and parallel import operations within EU GMP.

🦀 Clinical Development Physician Medical Director Oncology, Astellas Pharma: Want to oversee the design and delivery of late-phase or multiple early-phase clinical trials in immuno-oncology? You’ll define study strategy, drive execution and lead cross-functional teams as a collaborative consultant.

RSVP 📆

🧪 9.09 | Driving innovation through engineering biology | London, UK: Explore collaboration opportunities, develop project ideas and prepare for anticipated UKRI Engineering Biology Priority Programme calls.

🇨🇭 14-17.09 | Longevity Investors Conference 2026 | Gstaad, Switzerland: An exclusive gathering bringing together investors, family offices, scientists and industry leaders to discuss the latest trends, investment opportunities and insights in longevity and rejuvenation biotechnology.

🇬🇧 21-25.09 | Life Sciences Week 2026 | UK-wide: A week-long series of more than 30 events across the country, opening with a launch conference in Birmingham. Covers everything from early research to AI in biotech and medtech.

🩺 28.09-01.10 | LSI Europe ‘26 | Barcelona, Spain: Now in its fifth year, this summit puts emerging medtech and healthtech founders in front of active investors, with startup pitches alongside keynotes from the CEOs of Stryker, Edwards and Conmed.

🧫 29.09 | BioForward 2026 | Harwell, UK: A one-day exhibition and workshop programme at CO:LABS, connecting early-stage life sciences companies with CROs, CDMOs, IP specialists and lab space providers. Free to attend for the R&D 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.

Hello, my sniffling friends,

This week's biotech news has us reaching for the tissues: Lady Gaga launches biotech's answer to eternal youth, the shingles vaccine cuts cardiovascular risk, stroppy teenage hormones could hold the key to tackling asthma, production problems bring deep cuts at Cellares, and a vaccine for the common cold moves a step closer without a Lemsip in sight.

Achoo! (Bless you)

Dodo

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

The next molecular dream team

The next leap in advanced therapies moves the production of medicines into the cell. What could that mean for patients?

Watch now

Discover 🔍

🧑‍🎤 Inside Outer Bio: Lady Gaga launches skin longevity biotech with $23M (BioXconomy): Legendary pop icon Lady Gaga has revealed her board role at Outer Bio, a biotech co-founded with fiancé Michael Polansky to hunt for new skin-health compounds. Its discovery platform, Yuna, uses surgically discarded skin to keep full-thickness tissue alive and measurable for around four weeks, enabling monitoring of slow processes such as collagen remodelling and chronic inflammation. The company says it can pre-screen roughly 750 million compounds a year, and plans to develop what it finds through pharma and cosmetics partnerships.

Our take: The company’s pitch is that biology, not compute, is now the limiting factor. Yuna’s four-week window is a real advance on testing skin that usually dies within days, but four weeks in a dish is still a long way from a real human face. Starting with skincare ingredients is commercially wise, since they reach the market faster than a drug ever could, but the larger question – whether ex vivo skin predicts what happens in a living patient – waits on a pharma partner to test it properly.

💉 Shingles vaccine linked to lower risk of heart attack and stroke, study finds (The Guardian): A new study suggests GSK’s shingles vaccine Shingrix is linked to a lower risk of heart attack and stroke. Oxford researchers tracked records from 70,000 US adults aged 60 and over, and found that those given Shingrix had a 12% lower risk of a cardiovascular event in the first 3.5 years than those given the older Zostavax vaccine. If confirmed in a randomised trial, the researchers say the benefit could rival daily blood-pressure medication. (Read the Nature Medicine paper)

Our take: The authors’ suggested mechanism is that AS01, an adjuvant present in Shingrix but not in Zostavax, may retrain the immune system to release less IL-6, one of the inflammatory proteins behind heart disease. That would make the heart benefit a property of the adjuvant rather than the vaccine, meaning the rest of GSK’s AS01 portfolio – including its RSV and malaria shots – may have similar cardiovascular benefits. The effect faded after 3.5 years, though, suggesting that immune reprogramming eventually wears off.

♂️ Male sex hormones suppress lung allergies by acting on neurons in mice (GEN): Research in mice helps explain why asthma often eases in boys after puberty, while rates in women climb. Researchers at Peking University found that testosterone boosts sympathetic nerve growth in the lungs, increasing norepinephrine release and dialling down eosinophil-driven inflammation, while blocking androgen receptors reversed the effect and worsened allergic responses. The findings point to a previously overlooked hormone-nerve-immune pathway behind sex differences in asthma. (Read the Science Immunology paper)

Our take: Remission is already more common in adolescence than at any other age, and this study offers a mechanism for it; if puberty is when androgen-driven nerve rewiring kicks in, adolescence may in fact be a window when asthma’s trajectory is unusually malleable. As far as therapies go, inhalers work by calming inflammation once it starts, but these findings point towards remission through nerve growth – a rather more radical approach indeed!

✂️ BMS ends Cellares pact over cell therapy production problems, triggering layoffs (BioSpace): A $380M CAR-T manufacturing bet has unravelled. Bristol Myers Squibb has terminated its Cellares partnership after concluding the automated Cell Shuttle platform could not meet the requirements for commercial Breyanzi production. Cellares disputes that assessment, but the fallout is immediate, with around 100 layoffs planned. The split highlights a challenge in cell therapy: automating manufacturing is hard, but changing an already approved process is even harder.

Our take: Cellares raised $257M only ten months ago on a promise of commercial-scale production by 2027, and its Cell Shuttle carries an FDA designation intended to make post-approval manufacturing changes less painful. That was the very test it just failed, with BMS judging the platform unfit for a product already on the market. Of the roles being laid off, over half are “senior”, including the VP of commercial operations, which suggests Cellares is not just trimming the fat, but reassessing its commercial timeline.

And finally…

🤧 Apollo vaccine triggers broad rhinovirus immunity in Phase 1 (European Biotechnology Magazine): UK biotech Apollo Therapeutics is getting closer to a vaccine for the common cold with the first human data for APL-10456. In Part A of a 144-person Phase 1 trial, a single dose triggered a T-cell immune response that recognised all three major rhinovirus species, which between them span roughly 180 strains. Rather than targeting the variable surfaces antibodies usually latch onto, the vaccine uses a conserved antigen to stimulate broad T-cell immunity.

Our take: COPD is most common, and most damaging, in the over-55s, where exacerbations drive hospital admissions, steroid and antibiotic use, and long-term decline – those are the patients Apollo wants to reach. Part A of the trial ran in healthy adults aged 18 to 54, so it says nothing about whether an older, sicker immune system can mount the same response; Part B, testing exactly that in the over-55s, reports in Q4.

Tune in 🎧

🛡️ The race to weaponise new tech: NATO’s DIANA accelerator is funding startups turning quantum computing and biotech into frontline kit. Sitrep also covers the new Defence University Alliance and NATO’s red lines on Ukraine overspill.

💉 Is the era of cancer vaccines upon us?: Merck and Moderna say their personalised cancer vaccine improved outcomes for melanoma patients. A cancer biologist explains what that means, plus a look at the history of alchemy.

🦟 Malaria drug breakthrough, and space radiation vests: Australian researchers have found a new route to malaria prevention, alongside Britain’s push to eliminate hepatitis C, a vest shielding astronauts from radiation, and aerogel toothpaste for sensitive teeth.

Apply ✍️

💡 Brand Manager, Cycle Pharmaceuticals: Ready to turn brand strategy into measurable growth for rare-disease patients? In this role, you’ll lead insight-led marketing for the US speciality Brands portfolio and partner with US sales and medical compliance teams.

💊 Global Head of Patient Safety Operations, Roche: Keen to steer global pharmacovigilance operations that keep patients safe and regulators happy? You’ll build and execute the Patient Safety Operations strategy, lead multi-site teams and vendor relationships.

💰 Strategic Key Account Director, Thermo Fisher Scientific: Got a track record of turning top pharma accounts into growth engines? You’ll own the relationship for Thermo Fisher’s Pharma Services Group, lead group-level governance and commercial processes.

RSVP 📆

🧫 1-2.09 | International Bacteriophage Conference (Phages) | Oxford, UK: Bringing together scientists, clinicians and industry experts, the event will explore cutting-edge bacteriophage research and emerging approaches to phage therapy.

🧪 9.09 | Driving innovation through engineering biology | London, UK: This networking event allows participants the chance to explore collaboration opportunities, develop project ideas and prepare for anticipated UKRI Engineering Biology Priority Programme calls.

🧑‍🔬 14-16.09 | MSS2026 | Bled, Slovenia: A three-day scientific meeting focused on purification and advanced analytical technologies for gene therapies, vaccines, plasma, proteins and enzymes, bringing together industry and academia to share biopharma advances.

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 sweet sipping friends,

This week the biotech pot’s been properly brewing: daily sugary drinks are linked to a higher risk of stomach cancer, Hong Kong is building a bridge between US and Asian biotech, Moderna and Merck’s melanoma vaccine shows real promise, Harvard’s lab-grown brains reach their fifth birthday, and a gut bacterial metabolite is tied to faster cognitive decline.

Put the kettle on!

Dodo

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

Discover 🔍

☕ Sugar-sweetened beverages daily can lead to higher stomach cancer risk (GEN): A decades-long study of more than 112,000 US adults found that drinking at least one sugar-sweetened beverage a day was associated with a 2.45-fold higher risk of gastric cancer, compared with drinking less than one a month. Artificially sweetened drinks showed no such link. The study is observational and cannot prove sugary drinks cause cancer, but it raises fresh questions about whether high fructose intake could play a role in stomach cancer risk. (Read the paper in Gastro Hep Advances)

Our take: If this association with gastric cancer is replicated, it could become a new front in the policy case against sugary drinks. Up until now, taxes and marketing restrictions have largely been framed around obesity and diabetes. Adding cancer prevention could potentially strengthen arguments for higher levies, warning labels and restricted advertising. This old Dodo is switching to the diet stuff, effective immediately!

🇭🇰 With China rising, Hong Kong builds bridge to biotech innovation (BioSpace): LabCentral, a US biotech accelerator, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation (HKSTP) to trade scientists and startups between the two ecosystems. The partnership will allow participants to exchange expertise, and build stronger links with American and Asian venture capital and clinical trial networks. (Editor’s note: the memorandum was signed in June at BIO.)

Our take: With increased legislation – including the BIOSECURE Act, which became law last December – US-China collaboration has become even more sensitive, and neutral-ish infrastructure ever more valuable. The bet is that Hong Kong evolves into a place where partnerships are restructured, due diligence is conducted, IP is licensed, and capital is deployed with sufficient separation to reduce geopolitical exposure.

💉 Vaccine breakthrough stops cancer returning in trial (BBC News): A personalised mRNA vaccine from Moderna and Merck has shown promising results in preventing high-risk melanoma from returning after surgery. In the Phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial involving 1,137 patients, intismeran was administered alongside Merck’s existing immunotherapy, Keytruda. Topline results show the combination significantly extended the time patients remained cancer-free and reduced the risk of the disease spreading to other organs, compared with Keytruda alone, with fuller findings due at a medical conference in October.

Our take: Precision oncology has largely meant matching patients to existing therapies using biomarkers. Intismeran pushes that logic much further, with the tumour itself becoming the blueprint for producing an individual treatment encoding up to 34 neoantigens. If scalable, that changes the economics and structure of oncology; the question stops being which patients qualify for a drug and starts being how quickly you can develop one.

🧠 A ‘renaissance for biomedicine’: human brain organoids model development for 5 years (Fierce Biotech): Harvard researchers have kept lab-grown brain organoids alive for five years (with some cultures continuing even longer) – far beyond the months most models survive. Grown from a donor’s blood sample, the cells were found to age on a human schedule, with gene-expression and epigenetic changes running from early foetal patterns to features that appear only after birth. Scientists say the models could help in the study of autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions. (Read the paper in Nature)

Our take: The five-year brain culture is a scientific breakthrough, but it is also a commercial problem. Longitudinal experiments demand years of investment in cell culture, specialist staff and quality control before producing anything usable, which could disproportionately favour well-resourced universities and large pharmaceutical companies. The Harvard team wants this pipeline picked up by biotechs and startups, but they are precisely the organisations least able to fund half a decade of incubator space and technicians before seeing a result.

And finally…

🦠 There’s a new link between gut health and Alzheimer’s disease (Wired): Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have linked a gut bacterial metabolite called imidazole propionate (ImP) to Alzheimer’s disease. In a study of 1,196 cognitively healthy adults, higher blood levels of ImP were associated with faster cognitive decline and higher levels of the Alzheimer’s biomarkers pTau-217 and NfL. In mice, ImP increased blood-brain barrier permeability and worsened disease-like brain changes. (Read the paper in Nature Communications)

Our take: ImP has to cross the blood-brain barrier to reach neurons (damaging it further in the process), which means the barrier fails before the brain does. That raises the possibility that microbial metabolites change the brain’s permeability in ways that make it more vulnerable to multiple inflammatory or metabolic insults. The wider therapeutic opportunity could therefore be preserving the barrier’s integrity, not targeting any one gut-derived molecule.

Tune in 🎧

🦀 How Cancer Research Horizons is building the future of childhood cancer medicines: This episode looks at why children are still largely reliant on repurposed adult drugs, and how the C-Further consortium plans to build a dedicated pipeline of first-in-class paediatric oncology therapeutics.

🧬 Getting to a first product approval with Celcuity’s Brian Sullivan: A discussion on why targeting an “untreated disease mechanism” can outperform chasing single mutations, and how Celcuity licensed and de-risked a dormant asset.

🧠 Targeting the brain’s immune system in Alzheimer’s disease: Evinco Therapeutics’ CEO discusses natural killer cell-derived particles, which are designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver proteins and microRNAs directly to the brain.

Apply ✍️

🎩 Associate Director, Device Lead, GSK: Passionate about medical device technology, manufacturing science and combination products? This global role will own GSK’s device platform, leading supplier technical management, supply strategy, technology transfer, lifecycle management and manufacturing efficiency.

🏗️ Capital Project Manager, FUJIFILM Biotechnologies: Know your way around delivering complex site-based capital projects? This role involves end-to-end ownership of multiple projects, managing scope, budgets, schedules, and quality and safety KPIs.

RSVP 📆

🧫 1-2.09 | International Bacteriophage Conference (Phages) | Oxford, UK: Bringing together scientists, clinicians and industry experts, the event will explore cutting-edge bacteriophage research and emerging approaches to phage therapy.

🧪 9.09 | Driving innovation through engineering biology | London, UK: This networking event allows participants the chance to explore collaboration opportunities, develop project ideas and prepare for anticipated UKRI Engineering Biology Priority Programme calls.

🧑‍🔬 14-16.09 | MSS 2026 | Bled, Slovenia: A three-day scientific meeting focused on purification and advanced analytical technologies for gene therapies, vaccines, plasma, proteins and enzymes, bringing together industry and academia to share biopharma advances.

🇬🇧 21-25.09 | Life Sciences Week 2026 | Birmingham, UK: A national programme of more than 30 conferences, roundtables and showcases, opening with a launch day conference at Millennium Point on 21 September.

💰 28.09-1.10 | LSI Europe '26 | Barcelona, Spain: The emerging medtech summit brings startups together with investors and strategics, with around 200 presenting companies pitching to the funds and corporates that show up to write cheques. Applications to present close on 28 August.

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 master builders,

This week: Cambridge scientists are growing miniature human organs from NHS patients’ own cells, AI has drawn up a 766-gene blueprint for schizophrenia risk, CytoDyn’s leronlimab helps clear HIV from infant macaques, Tenax’s oral levosimendan comes apart in phase 3, and Stanford researchers assemble 16 working viruses from scratch to take on drug-resistant bacteria.

Mind how you go with those blueprints!

Dodo

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

Treat yourself: biotech edition

The next leap in advanced therapies moves the production of medicines into the cell. What could that mean for patients?

Find out now

Discover 🔍

🐭 ‘A mouse can’t tell us what works’: UK scientists to grow miniature human organs for drug testing (The Guardian): A new £20m Cambridge-led project will grow human organoids (tiny clumps of tissue) from NHS patients’ cells to make drug testing more accurate, personalised and less reliant on animals. The models will mimic diseases – including Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, cancer and neurological conditions – to help researchers test whether a candidate works in all patients or only a subset. The project aims to create a standardised library of validated models for academics and industry.

Our take: More than 90% of drugs that clear animal testing still fail in human trials, so the case for organoids is not only about using fewer animals; it is that the current system tests the wrong species. Patient-derived organoids are valuable precisely because they capture biological differences between individuals, so the challenge is to standardise how they are grown and tested without flattening the genetic, cellular and disease variation researchers are trying to study.

🧠 AI is helping solve the intricate genetic puzzle of schizophrenia (Wired): Scientists have identified 766 genes linked to schizophrenia, including 641 not previously highlighted in transcriptome-wide studies, using AI-based computational models which capture long-range regulatory relationships. The Nature Genetics study drew on genetic data from over 102,000 people and brain tissue from six regions, suggesting schizophrenia risk builds through coordinated gene networks rather than single faulty genes. The findings could help explain why symptoms vary so widely between patients. (Editor’s note: the Nature Genetics paper was published in June.)

Our take: The clinical value of maps like this will depend on how representative the underlying data is. Psychiatric genomics has historically overrepresented people of European ancestry, and the co-expression networks that make this method work are themselves learned from brain tissue donors who skew the same way. Polygenic findings already transfer less accurately to other populations and without broader ancestry and environmental representation, the technology could deepen, rather than reduce, health inequalities in risk prediction and treatment selection.

🐵 CytoDyn’s leronlimab reaffirms HIV potential after combo treatment eradicates virus in infant macaques (Fierce Biotech): CytoDyn’s leronlimab has helped eradicate HIV in infant macaques, treated within 72 hours of infection, when combined with antiretroviral therapy and two broadly neutralising antibodies. All eight animals on the triple regimen showed no viral rebound for up to a year after treatment stopped, while individual therapies and simpler combinations failed to prevent the virus from establishing itself. Leronlimab blocks CCR5, the co-receptor HIV uses to enter immune cells, while the other therapies attack the virus directly.

Our take: Given that every combination without leronlimab failed, the macaque results make a strong case that CCR5 blockade is doing something the other drugs cannot. What they cannot yet show is how far the 72-hour treatment window stretches, or whether it exists at all in adults. Future trials will need to establish that while still protecting participants from being assigned an inferior regimen, which creates a difficult trial-design and regulatory problem for HIV-cure research.

🫀 Tenax trounced by phase 3 heart failure readout (pharmaphorum): Tenax Therapeutics’ shares fell more than 85% this week, after its phase 3 LEVEL trial missed both its primary and key secondary endpoints. TNX-103, an oral version of the calcium sensitiser levosimendan, failed to improve how far patients could walk, or their symptom scores, compared with placebo. The target was pulmonary hypertension caused by a stiff heart, a condition with no approved treatment – Tenax’s bet was that an oral levosimendan, long used intravenously in Europe but never approved in the US, could fill that gap.

Our take: Levosimendan works by helping the heart squeeze harder, but in this condition the squeeze was never the problem; the heart pumps fine, it just won’t relax enough to fill properly between beats. Tenax says the trial enrolled too many patients with mild disease, and it wants regulators to let it revise its approach. However, the more likely explanation is that a contraction drug was never going to fix a stiffness problem, whatever state the patients arrived in.

And finally…

🦠 Sixteen AI-designed viruses offer a new route against drug-resistant bacteria (phys.org): Stanford-led researchers have crossed a significant threshold in generative biology, using AI to design complete viral genomes that can function in living cells. Of 285 synthesised candidates, 16 produced viable viruses capable of infecting and killing E. coli; a cocktail of these synthetic phages went further, killing bacterial strains that had already evolved resistance to the natural virus they were modelled on. The work points towards custom-designed viruses as a new weapon against drug-resistant bacteria. (Read the Science paper)

Our take: A major advantage of AI-designed phages could be their ability to respond as bacteria evolve resistance. That creates an unusual, but important, regulatory problem: conventional drug approvals assume a relatively fixed therapeutic product, while an effective phage platform might need to repeatedly update its viral components. Regulators may eventually need a framework closer to platform or strain-update approvals than a traditional drug-by-drug assessment.

Tune in 🎧

🇨🇳 Why Western pharma is sleeping on China’s circular RNA revolution: Therorna’s founder makes the case for circular RNA over linear mRNA, arguing it offers greater stability, durability and the ability to be re-dosed.

🤖 AI-Designed Viruses, OpenAI’s First Device, The Mansion Section: TBPN covers the synthetic phage paper, a forthcoming OpenAI hardware device, and Meta’s child safety case, with guests from Khosla Ventures, Databricks and the live-shopping platform Whatnot.

🧬 Cell therapy advances and biotech leadership with Nkarta’s Paul Hastings: Nkarta’s CEO on an off-the-shelf CAR NK approach to autoimmune disease, and why US clinical trial infrastructure is holding cell therapy back.

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🫡 Senior Director, Market Strategy and Development, Thermo Fisher Scientific: Interested in commercial strategy, demand generation and biopharma markets? This senior leadership role will set global go-to-market direction across Thermo Fisher’s CDMO portfolio.

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🤝 01-02.09 | Asia Bio Partnering Forum | Singapore: Asia-Pacific’s flagship dealmaking gathering, now in its fourth year, bringing 650+ pharma, biotech and investor attendees to Marina Bay Sands for 2,500 one-to-one meetings and 300+ licensing opportunities.

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

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Hello, my fellow horticulturists

This week is a mixed flower bed: pioneering womb surgery gives babies born with abdominal defects a chance to blossom, AstraZeneca sprawls across the oncology space with a Bristol Myers Squibb merger, scientists have pup-agated canines that won’t have you reaching for antihistamines, a breakthrough MND treatment takes root in human trials, and some deadly plants turn out to have a healing streak.

Keep digging for cures!

Dodo

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👶 Woman has pioneering womb surgery to fix ‘miracle’ baby with intestines outside its body (BBC News): A British baby became the third in the world to undergo pioneering surgery in the womb to treat complex gastroschisis, a life-threatening abdominal wall defect in which the bowel develops outside the body. Doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital used keyhole foetal surgery at 26 weeks’ gestation to push baby Theo’s organs back into his abdomen; Theo was delivered successfully in February.

Our take: By correcting complex gastroschisis before birth, the procedure could dramatically shorten or eliminate neonatal intensive care stays that, in the most complex cases, can run to six months, requiring multiple surgeries and prolonged IV feeding. Michael Belfort, the surgeon who led the trial, thinks the innovative technique opens up the womb as a surgical space more broadly, noting that both cardiac and lung operations could potentially be performed in utero.

🤑 AstraZeneca falls to third-largest UK company amid US merger talks (The Guardian): AstraZeneca’s shares fell sharply this week after reports that it is in talks to merge with Bristol Myers Squibb, in a deal that could value the combined companies at nearly $400B. The takeover would create the world’s fourth-largest drugmaker by market capitalisation and result in a major expansion of AstraZeneca’s stateside presence, but the move is set to draw regulatory scrutiny given the overlap between the two firms’ oncology portfolios.

Our take: For three years, AstraZeneca has built its pipeline cheaply, licensing drugs from Chinese biotechs for small sums upfront and paying the rest only if they work. Bristol Myers Squibb is the opposite kind of bet: a $133B company with a shrinking growth outlook and a run of patent expiries ahead of it. AstraZeneca is forecast to post double-digit earnings growth through 2030 on its own, and analysts are struggling to see the rationale for this mega-merger proposal.

🐕 Fur real: Biotech startup eliminates major dog allergen in beagle pups using CRISPR (GEN): A New York start-up has used CRISPR to breed two beagle puppies that no longer produce Can f 1, a small lipocalin protein linked to sneezing, itchy eyes, rashes and asthma. The two new pups, Alfie and Bailey, are now nearly two years old, healthy, and behaviourally normal. This development opens the door to dogs that don’t trigger allergies, shifting treatment from managing people’s immune response to removing the allergen at source.

Our take: They may be man’s best friend, but one in seven people worldwide are allergic to our canine pals. Knocking out Can f 1 should take the edge off most reactions, though it is the dominant allergen rather than the only one, so these dogs are not fully hypoallergenic. The researchers now hope to scale their work safely into secondary allergens and other breeds, with a focus on creating allergy-safe companion and service animals.

💊 MND drug entering human trials could help 97% of sufferers (The Times): A new drug for motor neurone disease is set to enter human trials. Developed from UCL research, TRCN-1023 helps cells restore production of UNC13A, a protein vital for communication between motor neurones and muscles. While it is not a cure, researchers hope it could slow disease progression and offer one of the most broadly applicable MND treatments developed in years.

Our take: Up until now, MND drug development has mostly focused on small genetic subgroups; tofersen, the first MND drug licensed in the UK in decades, works only for the roughly 2% of patients with SOD1 mutations. TRCN-1023, on the other hand, targets a protein shortfall found in 97% of cases, so it could impact far more people. However, the drug’s value will depend heavily on how early patients receive it, potentially adding pressure on diagnosis and testing, and making earlier detection as important as the treatment itself.

And finally…

💐 Deadly flowers may unlock the secret to synthesising potent new medicines (BioTechniques): Scientists have uncovered six enzymes that help two highly poisonous plants – wolfsbane and larkspur – produce atisinium, a complex alkaloid with potential applications in pain, malaria and cancer treatment. By recreating parts of the pathway in tobacco plants, the team has taken an important step towards producing these hard-to-make compounds more sustainably, turning nature’s chemical weapons into possible starting points for new medicines.

Our take: Atisinium belongs to the diterpenoid alkaloids, a family that has long interested drug developers but whose structural complexity has made the compounds very difficult to synthesise chemically. Rebuilding the pathway in tobacco turns the plants into a research platform where the six enzymes can be tested, tweaked and used to explore related compounds long before anyone attempts production at scale.

Tune in 🎧

🧠 Gain Therapeutics: a first-in-class, disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson’s: Gene Mack discusses his journey from biochemistry and Wall Street to biotech leadership.

🕵️ Nick Myerberg, partner and Head of AI at Braidwell on AI’s next era in drug discovery: The episode examines why AI has yet to deliver approved medicines, and what separates a durable platform from the hype.

💊 A rescue model for shelved drug candidates with Annette Bakker, PhD and Andrew Lo, PhD: The duo discuss how shelved medicines can be matched with new developers and funding, using Gomekli’s route from an abandoned Pfizer candidate to an approved NF1 therapy.

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🧑‍⚕️ Director of Statistical Science – Global Medical Affairs/Payer Biometrics, AstraZeneca: Do you know your way around oncology statistics, real-world evidence and payer strategies? This position will entail managing and developing a global team of statisticians, shaping study design and quantitative decision-making.

🧪 Senior Director, Biologics Platform Technologies Head, GSK: Experienced in industrialising biologics manufacturing technologies at scale? In this senior leadership role, you will shape global platform strategy and oversee technology transfers.

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🧬 20-21.08 | 15th International Conference on Biotechnology | London, UK: Explore advances in genetic engineering, tissue engineering, microbial biotechnology, biofabrication, nanobiotechnology and pharmaceutical innovation.

💡 24.08 | BioTech Startups, Investors, Innovators & Professionals Networking Event | London, UK: An evening bringing together biotech founders, investors, researchers and industry professionals to build connections, share ideas and explore new opportunities for collaboration across biotechnology and life sciences.

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.

Ahoy, my seafaring sleuths,

The waters are busy this week: COVID’s immune legacy resurfaces for a second deployment, the vagus nerve is mapped for the first time, an inhaled drug finds its sea legs in bronchiectasis, FDA advisers crack open the peptide hatch, and federal marshals board a sailboat off New Jersey to find someone who has been hiding in plain sight for 21 years.

Anchors aweigh,

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🦠 New cancer vaccine harnesses COVID-19 immune memory to fight tumours (News Medical): A Cleveland team at Celloram, University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve has developed a dendritic cell vaccine that leverages residual immunity to the COVID Spike protein. PROTEXI pairs tumour antigens with Spike fragments, so that the helper T-cells (CD4+) a patient already carries can recruit killer T-cells (CD8+) against the cancer. The target is “immune-cold” tumours, which evade immune recognition and against which cancer vaccines have long struggled. In mice, PROTEXI slowed melanoma and breast tumour growth, and improved survival.

Our take: Nothing else in modern medicine comes close to the scale of shared immune memory the pandemic left behind, and very few people have worked out what to do with it. Celloram’s answer is cancer, but logic suggests that if a Spike epitope can lend help to a tumour antigen, it could do so for any target too weak to elicit help on its own. A human trial in sarcoma is up next.

🫁 Revagenix doses first Participant in Phase 1 Trial of Rev-56, an inhaled therapy for non-CF bronchiectasis (BioSpace): Up to half a million American adults live with non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis, but there is no approved therapy for the Pseudomonas aeruginosa driving their flare-ups and hospital admissions, so clinicians fall back on off-label antibiotics. Revagenix has dosed the first participant in a Phase 1 trial of Rev-56, an inhaled antibacterial designed to fill that gap. The two-part trial covers both healthy volunteers and patients with confirmed P. aeruginosa infection, with the first topline data due by year-end.

Our take: Rev-56 works by inhibiting LpxC, an enzyme that Gram-negative bacteria need to build their outer membrane. Companies Achaogen and Recida have also had a crack at it, but both abandoned their candidates in Phase 1 after their circulating drugs raised cardiovascular safety concerns. Rev-56 aims to overcome this by not circulating at all; bronchiectasis is an airway infection, so inhaling the drug gets it directly to the bacteria without entering the bloodstream.

🩻 Comprehensive human vagus nerve map unveiled (GEN): 30 donors, 60 nerves, and three years of microCT imaging have produced what Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes call the first comprehensive anatomical map of the human vagus nerve, the sprawling cranial nerve running from brainstem to gut. Each nerve carries roughly 100,000 fibres, some half a micrometre across. The $6.7 million NIH-funded dataset is now free on SPARC Science for anyone building neuromodulation devices.

Our take: Vagus nerve stimulation has become a wellness category, sold through breathing apps, cold plunges and ear clips. But even clinical devices – such as the rheumatoid arthritis implant the FDA approved in July 2025 – stimulate the whole trunk, which increases the risk of unwanted effects. A fibre-level reference map finally makes targeted stimulation possible.

💊 FDA advisers narrowly vote to add 6 peptides to a drug compounding list. What’s next? (ABC News): A committee of outside advisers to the FDA has recommended adding six peptides, including BPC-157, to the controlled list of ingredients compounding pharmacies may use, overruling the agency’s own scientists who opposed all seven under consideration on the grounds of thin trial data and possible immune reactions. The peptides – none of which are FDA-approved as medicines – are promoted for a wide range of uses, including muscle growth and fat loss. Scientists worry this will confuse consumers, who may mistake a place on the compounding list for medical approval.

Our take: The committee’s recommendation was based on harm reduction; Americans buy peptides online anyway, so a pharmacy is safer than an unknown vendor. While that’s not a bad argument, it’s worth asking who stands to gain from wider access, especially since panellists included people who work for peptide businesses and clinics – appointments that FDA officials reportedly questioned as the panel was being assembled. The agency is not bound by the recommendation, though it usually follows such advice.

And finally…

⛵ In the biotech industry, a most-wanted fugitive was long hiding in plain sight (STAT News): Federal marshals boarded a 56-foot sailboat off New Jersey this month, arresting the man Immix Biopharma had until recently employed as its chief medical officer. Richard Graydon was the most recent of many aliases used by Ronald Fischer, 70, a former anaesthesiologist who failed to appear at his Rhode Island trial in 2005 and was convicted in absentia of first-degree sexual assault. He had already lost his medical licence in the 1990s, after pleading guilty to assault in an earlier case.

Our take: Companies associated with Graydon/Fischer are now distancing themselves from him. Atossa, which named him interim CMO in 2022, now says he was a contractor for less than two weeks; J&J says he was never an employee; and Immix fired him the day after news of his capture broke – for reasons, it told financial regulators, unrelated to his activities at the company. This is a pertinent reminder to employers that due diligence matters, and that scrutiny ought to rise with seniority, not the other way round.

Tune in 🎧

What The Health With Emily Casey: A brand new podcast bringing together healthcare founders, clinicians, investors and operators for candid and occasionally unruly conversations.

Longevity Treatments – Snake Oil or Breakthrough? John Newman & Mahtab Jafari: Longevity researchers rate the current evidence for metformin, rapamycin, NAD+, GLP-1s and more, asking what would it take for any of them to gain regulatory approval for healthspan indications?

Astrocytes Respond to Stress and Affect Anxiety, Synaptic Plasticity and Memory: Neuroscientist Ciaran Murphy-Royal explains how a single astrocyte can interact with thousands of neurons at once, and how astrocyte networks regulate anxiety and fear responses.

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🩺 Associate Medical Director, Safety Evaluation and Risk Management, GSK: Got the clinical judgement to steer pharmacovigilance strategy at a global pharma? You’ll lead signal detection, author periodic safety reports and RMPs, and drive evidence-based risk decisions across GSK’s clinical development and post-marketing portfolio.

🧬 Laboratory Technician, MolBreeding Biotechnology: Handy with a sequencer? You’ll perform NGS workflows from DNA extraction through library preparation to sequencer operation, run genotyping assays, and keep reagent inventory ticking over.

🌱 Plant Physiology Scientist, Wild Bio: Want to teach crops to outperform half a billion years of evolution? You’ll design large-scale photosynthesis phenotyping studies, build proprietary datasets, and translate physiological insights into yield traits.

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🧑‍🔬 10-13.08 | The Bioprocessing Summit 2026 | Boston, USA: A major global meeting for bioprocessing scientists, engineers and industry leaders, covering process development, scale-up, quality and analytics across biologics, cell and gene therapy, RNA and emerging modalities.

💡 24.08 | BioTech Startups, Investors, Innovators & Professionals Networking Event | London, UK: An evening for biotech founders, investors, researchers and industry professionals to make connections, share ideas and find new collaborators across the life sciences.

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, cellular zombie slayers,

This week, Andy Burnham isn’t the only one with reasons to be cheerful as the UK enjoys a biotech funding boom, AstraZeneca is taking a gamble on rare diseases, brain remodelling in teenage mice could guide mental illness treatment, Donald Trump is slapping 100% tariffs on generics, and the removal of ‘senescent’ zombie cells could improve the ageing process.

Until the next resurrection.

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🇬🇧 UK biotech venture investment reaches five-year high at over £2B in Q2 (UKTN): UK biotech is riding a major funding wave, driven largely by Isomorphic Labs’ £1.6B mega-round. Even without this outlier, venture capital nearly doubled year-on-year to £498M, underlining broad-based investor confidence across the sector. The UK now captures 61% of Europe’s total VC investment, cementing its spot as the continent’s top biotech hub, with strong activity across seed, Series A and later-stage rounds.

Our take: The headline growth masks a heavy concentration of capital; strip out Isomorphic Labs, and the underlying funding base is still fairly thin, even if it’s moving in the right direction. This raises questions about how deep and resilient the UK biotech capital pool really is, and whether the ecosystem is overly reliant on a small number of breakout AI-driven companies to sustain momentum.

🤑 AstraZeneca highlights rare diseases in $80B revenue push (The FT): Alexion, AstraZeneca’s US-based rare disease subsidiary, is betting that rare diseases could be a major growth engine for the company. CEO Marc Dunoyer notes 95% of the 10,000 known rare diseases still lack an approved treatment, leaving huge room for scientific and commercial progress. Alexion now contributes 16% of AstraZeneca’s revenue and will expand into 80 countries, making it central to the company’s push towards $80B in sales by 2030.

Our take: AstraZeneca’s gamble is on its ability to make rare-disease access work across very different and highly fragmented healthcare and payer systems. Expanding into 80 countries turns rare disease into a serious market-shaping exercise, where local reimbursement, evidence thresholds and treatment pathways may matter as much as the science itself.

🧠 Memory shaped by brain remodelling during adolescence in mice (GEN): Adolescent memories may not disappear; they may simply become harder to access. US researchers found that in mice, a brain region responsible for established memories temporarily remodels during late adolescence, weakening the structures that keep memory circuits stable. The study suggests adolescence may be a true remodelling phase for memory, and could help explain why memory, mood and mental health risks all shift during this period.

Our take: That the remodelling is confined to the retrosplenial cortex, sparing the hippocampus entirely, points to something more specific than generalised adolescent brain chaos – a deliberate, targeted process with its own timing. Given this window overlaps with when schizophrenia and depression typically first appear, individual variation in this remodelling schedule might one day tell us who’s vulnerable, long before any psychiatric symptoms surface.

🇺🇸 US generic tariff reprieve on the rocks as Trump proposes 100% rate in 2028 (Pharmaceutical Technology): Trump is threatening to slap generic drugs entering the US with a 100% tariff from August 2028, doubling to 200% a year later, unless manufacturers relocate production stateside. Generic medicines make up around 90% of US prescriptions, and more than half of their active ingredients are sourced from India and Europe, leaving both regions especially exposed should the plan go ahead.

Our take: Moving final assembly onto US soil doesn’t automatically build a domestic supply chain. Generic manufacturing still depends on globally sourced active ingredients, chemicals, packaging and specialist equipment, most of which will keep coming from India, China and Europe regardless of where the pills get pressed. Unless the policy also addresses these upstream dependencies, Washington risks satisfying political demands for domestic production without removing the vulnerabilities behind shortages.

And finally…

🧟 Restoring ability to remove zombie cells may keep us sharp as we age (The New Scientist): Scientists have found a way to restore the body’s own ability to clear senescent ‘zombie’ cells, rather than destroying them outright. Stanford researchers blocked a receptor called EP2 on tissue-resident macrophages in older mice, restoring their ability to clear out worn-out neutrophils. The treated mice showed sharper memory, less inflammation and better mobility, hinting that ageing may be partly driven by a fixable immune-system glitch.

Our take: The improvements across memory, inflammation, muscle loss, fat accumulation and mobility suggest that impaired macrophage clearance could sit upstream of several age-related problems: senescent neutrophils can accumulate, fuelling chronic inflammation that ripples out into frailty and cognitive decline. Rather than treating these as separate conditions, future therapies might instead target the shared biological mechanism underneath them.

Tune in 🎧

💰 How BIO-Europe is expanding beyond dealmaking in 2026: The 2026 event will introduce new tracks covering regulatory strategy, clinical development and manufacturing.

💬 Robert Jacks, CEO of Sparrow Pharmaceuticals | precision medicine, biotech strategy & leadership: Robert discusses his journey from engineering into the C-suite, and why strategic clarity, empathy and disciplined capital allocation matter more than chasing acquisitions.

🧠 Late-stage development and commercial planning with CervoMed’s Matt Winton: The episode covers neflamapimod’s path through late-stage trials for dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), including manufacturing scale-up, regulatory alignment, payer engagement and launch planning.

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🎩 Senior Director, Translational & Clinical Omics, Novo Nordisk Global: Interested in shaping how genomics, bioinformatics and AI inform medicine development? This global leadership role will define the long-term omics strategy, and turn complex clinical and translational data into insights that support R&D decisions.

🤝 Senior Engagement Manager, Phastar: Experienced in managing complex life sciences projects and keeping customers at the centre? This fully remote role will oversee oncology and rare disease studies, and build strong client relationships across the UK, Spain, France or South Africa.

💊 Strategic Deployment Manager, Life Science, Schrödinger: Keen on helping pharma teams adopt advanced computational drug discovery tools? This role will lead customer deployments of the Schrödinger Platform from project scoping through to long-term adoption.

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🧑‍🔬 10-13.08 | The Bioprocessing Summit 2026 | Boston, USA: A major global meeting for bioprocessing scientists, engineers and industry leaders, covering process development, scale-up, quality and analytics across biologics, cell and gene therapy, RNA and emerging modalities.

🧬 20-21.08 | 15th International Conference on Biotechnology | London, UK: The meeting explores advances in genetic engineering, tissue engineering, microbial biotechnology, biofabrication, nanobiotechnology and pharmaceutical innovation.

💡 24.08 | BioTech Startups, Investors, Innovators & Professionals Networking Event | London, UK: An evening bringing together biotech founders, investors, researchers and industry professionals to build connections, share ideas and explore new opportunities for collaboration across biotechnology and life sciences.

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 venture capitalists,

This week: tick-borne nairoviruses have found a new way to dodge human immune signals, an Apple Tree partner has been ordered to hand over control of the biotech venture fund, biotech IPOs in H1 2026 have already beaten 2025’s year-total tally, Harvard hosts the world’s largest longevity conference, and German researchers discover that bacteria will hoover up dissolved uranium if you give them a glycerol snack.

Don’t forget to read the small print!

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🪲 Tick-borne nairoviruses use OTU proteases to evade human antiviral signals (GEN): Scientists studying the not-so-humble tick have discovered a new pathogenic concern: nairoviruses. These RNA viruses, spread by ticks in Asia, Europe, Africa and the US, can cause high fevers, severe headaches, and organ dysfunction in humans. The researchers examined four emerging nairoviruses – SGLV, TTV1, YEZV, and PCTNV – revealing that the enzyme ovarian tumour protease (OTU) strips away the protein tags ubiquitin and ISG15, which activate human immune responses. PCTNV, carried by ticks on the Pacific Coast, had the strongest immune-dodging effect.

Our take: Each summer, it seems we are at the mercy of new tick-borne diseases and scientists are not resting on their laurels (Editor’s note: I cannot find out if Dodos carried ticks, but feathered dinosaurs certainly did!) In this study, the team resolved high‑resolution crystal structures of several OTU proteases, in order to train computational models and predict the threat of emerging nairoviruses before they spread. The research paints a compelling picture of tick diversity; it’s not just Lyme disease we should be looking out for!

⚖️ Judge orders Apple Tree partner to forfeit oversight of venture fund (BioPharma Dive): A Cayman Islands court has ordered Seth Harrison, general partner of biotech VC Apple Tree Partners, to hand control of the fund to two court-appointed directors. The ruling caps a year-long legal fight with primary backer Rigmora – tied to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev – which pledged $1.5B to ATP back in 2012. A parallel US bankruptcy case rumbles on, with Harrison himself emerging as a bidder for ATP’s portfolio companies.

Our take: Spare a thought for the biotechs caught in the middle. ATP’s portfolio companies – including Red Queen Therapeutics and Ascidian Therapeutics – all have staff and patients relying on funding that’s now tied up in a boardroom fight. Just last year, Delaware courts sided with ATP, ordering Rigmora to pay roughly $97M to meet its capital commitments to its startups. Let’s hope the science survives the litigation.

📈 Biotech IPOs surge in H1 of 2026, shattering records and doubling last year’s total (BioSpace): 18 biotechs went public in the first half of 2026, already more than double 2025’s rather meagre total of eight. Two of them, obesity player Kailera and peptide outfit Parabilis, set new records for the largest biotech IPO ever, at $625M and $670M respectively. Of the US contingent, seven (of 13) have already shown strong performance, with hair-loss biotech Veradermics leading the way – up a jolly 550% since its February debut.

Our take: 2026 looks set to become biotech’s strongest IPO year since the market highs of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021 produced around 100 IPOs). Two biotechs hoping to join the IPO bandwagon are CRISPR engineers Scribe Therapeutics – despite only having one candidate in the clinic – and metabolic upstart Kalohexis, which has two lead assets for durable weight loss and cancer cachexia in clinical trials.

🎓 Harvard University hosts the world’s largest conference dedicated to longevity biotechnology (News Medical): The ‘13th Aging Research & Drug Discovery Meeting’ lands at Harvard in October, kicking off Boston Longevity Week. Organised by Insilico Medicine, the meeting’s headline sponsor is Eli Lilly, with AbbVie, BioAge, and Morgan Stanley rounding out the sponsor list. Tracks span clinical development, AI drug discovery, and future tech, with executives from ten of the world’s largest pharma companies confirmed to speak.

Our take: No longer just the domain of health-maxxers (this old Dodo prays this is a phrase!), longevity science has transitioned from trendy buzzword to a multi-billion-dollar category. At last year’s conference, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk proposed that GLP-1 agonists may well be the first longevity drugs (read the article in Nature Biotechnology). With a slew of pharma companies now developing longevity programs across areas such as fibrosis, anti-muscle-wasting and cellular rejuvenation, who knows what headlines will emerge this year.

And finally…

☢️ Bacteria turn dissolved uranium into stable compound in 130 days, study finds (Phys.org): Give a microbe a glycerol snack, and it will hoover up radioactive waste in water. That’s the finding of German and Spanish researchers, who fed the stuff to bugs living in water from a flooded mine in the Ore Mountains. 130 days later, 95% of the dissolved uranium had been packed away into their cell walls as FeU(V)O4, a rare pentavalent compound thought to be atmospherically stable.

Our take: These chemical findings have obvious environmental implications, and the authors plan to investigate the extent to which bacteria might help render toxic uranium harmless for remediation purposes. By mimicking a deep mine’s natural low-oxygen conditions, the team has a lead on what might trigger the same reaction in the wild – without needing to tip glycerol into a mine by the tanker-load.

Tune in 🎧

💾 The birth, evolution, and future of microchips: Follow the microchip’s journey from 1950s origins to cornerstone of global technology, economics, and geopolitics, and what semiconductors will shape next.

🕵️ You have plenty to hide from AI: AI has dissolved the friction that once made mass surveillance data practically harmless, putting cheaply available personal data within easy reach of governments, foreign powers, and ad brokers.

🏘️ The data centre next door: Environmental health scientist Jacoby Wilson explains how data centres bring noise, water consumption, and rising utility bills disproportionately to working-class neighbourhoods, and what regulatory tools could push back.

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🧬 Scientist/Senior Scientist, Therapeutic Antibody Discovery, Maxion Therapeutics: Keen to engineer antibodies against targets the industry has struggled with for decades? You’ll run KnotBody selection campaigns against ion channel and GPCR antigens, and conduct screening for binding and functional properties.

🖥️ Data Scientist, Portal Biotech: Fancy hunting proteins at the single-molecule level? You’ll develop statistical and ML pipelines for nanopore-based proteomic data, iterate from exploratory analysis to deployable components, and collaborate closely with the wet lab team.

🎗️ Group Leader, Antibody Screening and Pharmacology, Cancer Research UK: Ready to lead the team triaging tomorrow’s cancer antibodies? You’ll oversee pharmacological screening, define candidate selection strategies across bispecifics, ADCs and T-cell engagers, and drive scientific leadership.

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💡 22.07 | Startup Lab x Specialist Briefings: AI Innovation vs. Regulation - Is the UK Falling Behind or Playing it Safe? | London, UK: An evening panel with Curistica, Aival, ZINC and RADIANT picking apart whether the UK’s regulatory posture on digital health is a prudent guardrail or growth-throttling bureaucracy.

It seems that the fledglings have begun to fly the nest this summer and are having a well-earned break, which means we’re all quiet on the event front. However, get in touch if you know of any upcoming biotech events that should be on our radar! Post an event here

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, it’s been a rather buggy week in the world of biotech.

This week, Novartis gets the chequebook out for up-and-coming British biotech Myricx Bio; Boston’s biotech hub hits the skids as new contenders emerge; depressed hippies everywhere are finally vindicated as psychedelics prove their mettle against treatment-resistant depression, asthmatic mice breathe easier thanks to a nifty new allergen treatment, and cyborg cockroaches don tiny diving suits to explore disaster zones.

It turns out these bugs have more to offer than getting your local kebab shop shut down.

Dodo

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🇨🇭 Swiss drugmaker Novartis buys UK biotech firm in $1.5bn deal (The Times): Myricx Bio, an Imperial College and Francis Crick Institute spinout, has been snapped up by Novartis, marking one of the UK biotech sector’s cleaner pre-clinical exits. Founded in 2019, the company develops next-generation payloads – the warhead, in ADC parlance – designed to deliver a targeted cancer-killing payload directly into tumours. Its NMT inhibitor platform tackles the resistance and toxicity that limit current ADCs.

Our take: Myricx’s sale at a pre-clinical stage says rather a lot about the limits of Europe’s biotech scaling model. The company had credible backing, a £90 million Series A led by Novo Holdings and Abingworth, a high-quality syndicate by any standard. Yet even with that support behind it, the exit came before any clinical data emerged, precisely where valuations tend to inflect most sharply.

🏙️ Beyond Boston: Unlikely cities stake biotech claims (BiopharmaDive): Lancaster County is perhaps better known for horse-drawn buggies and Amish country than antibody manufacturing, but a new wave of unexpected US life sciences hubs are gaining ground. Lancaster is leaning on GSK’s $800 million expansion, Oklahoma City on federal funding, and Las Vegas on lower operating costs and a fresh 120,000 sq ft incubator from Roseman University of Health Sciences.

Our take: These emerging hubs are being catalysed by coordinated public investment rather than traditional venture capital, from Pennsylvania’s backing of GSK and Eurofins to federal funding pouring into Oklahoma. This signals a different model of biotech cluster formation, where government-led industrial strategy plays a larger role in de-risking infrastructure and early ecosystem buildout, particularly outside established VC-heavy regions.

🧠 Compass’ psilocybin depression drug works for the long haul (BioSpace): Compass Pathways has strengthened its case for the first FDA-approved psilocybin therapy, with Phase 3 data showing rapid and durable benefits in treatment-resistant depression. In the latest trial, 39% of patients saw meaningful improvement within 6 weeks of 2 doses, most of those gains holding through 6 months, and nearly 30% of initial responders later reaching full remission. Psychedelics could be genuine challengers to staples like SSRIs.

Our take: If approved, COMP360 may not be constrained by patient demand or clinical efficacy, but by the sheer logistics of delivery. Unlike pills, psychedelic therapies require hours-long supervised sessions, trained staff, and specialised settings. That makes delivery inherently capacity-limited. A single patient can occupy a room and a clinician for most of a working day, sharply constraining how many patients a site can treat.

🐭 Chimeric allergen receptor treg cells suppress allergic asthma in mice (GEN): Researchers in Lausanne have borrowed the architecture of cancer immunotherapy and pointed it in the opposite direction, engineering immune cells to switch off allergic responses rather than switch them on. Regulatory T cells equipped with chimeric allergen receptors suppressed and even prevented asthma symptoms in mice. By precisely targeting the allergen, the engineered Tregs restore immune tolerance rather than simply turning the whole system down.

Our take: Most allergy treatments either block parts of the inflammatory cascade or gradually expose the body to an allergen until the immune response becomes less reactive. By arming Tregs with receptors that recognise birch pollen, the therapy is designed to intervene only when the relevant allergen appears. If this approach translates, it could shift allergy treatment away from blanket suppression and towards something closer to programmable tolerance.

And finally…

🪳 World’s first ‘diving suits’ for cockroaches (The Naked Scientist): The cockroach – evolution’s most resilient nuisance – has now been kitted out with a 3D-printed scuba backpack that generates oxygen from hydrogen peroxide, extending its underwater survival from a few minutes to up to three hours. Scientists in Singapore steer the insects remotely by stimulating their nervous systems, sending them through tight, debris-filled spaces in disaster zones where conventional robots cannot follow.

Our take: Sending a robot into a flooded tunnel raises no particular ethical questions. Sending a living animal – surgically modified, remotely steered, dispatched into a potentially lethal environment – is rather a different matter. The researchers frame the cockroach as a platform, but it remains an organism, and existing animal research frameworks were not written with this in mind. Nobody has quite decided what it is, which means nobody has decided who is responsible for it.

Tune in 🎧

🧑‍🔬 The first PROTAC is here. What comes next in protein degradation? President and CEO of Arvinas explains how PROTAC protein degradation uses the body’s own disposal system to eliminate disease-causing proteins, and why the first Phase 3 success for a PROTAC could mark a new chapter in drug design.

🤑 BoB@BIO: Biotech investing and deals: Executive Partner, Private Equity, at Sofinnova Maha Radhakrishnan discusses the move from pharma to investing, what makes late-stage asset deals work, and how China-originated programmes are reshaping development timelines.

🥼 Hosts chat with Riley Elmer: Tips and tricks to improving scientific presentations: This week’s guest shares her practical advice for making scientific presentations clearer, more engaging, and more memorable, from building better slides and tailoring complex research for different audiences.

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💰 Manager, BioPharma Business Development (EMEA), Foundation Medicine: Interested in helping pharma and biotech partners make better use of genomic insights? You’ll drive account growth, shape biopharma partnerships, and connect partners with FMI’s NGS assays.

🧪 Business Development Manager (Pharma/Biotech), Biosynth: Passionate about turning pharma and biotech prospects into long-term clients? You’ll lead sales from prospecting to close, build industry networks, negotiate contracts, and work with marketing and BD teams to spot new opportunities.

💂 London Account Manager, Thermo Fisher Scientific: Keen on helping leading research institutions advance their science? You’ll manage key accounts including the Francis Crick, QMUL and Southampton University, build lasting customer relationships, and grow revenue through consultative selling.

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💡 13.07 | BioTech Startups, Investors, Innovators & Professionals Networking Event | London, UK: An evening networking event for biotech founders, investors, researchers and industry professionals, with one-minute elevator pitches, investor access and opportunities to build strategic partnerships across pharma, biotech and life sciences.

🤑 14.07 | Bionow Business Pitching 2026 | Warrington, UK: A morning event bringing together innovative businesses, investors and collaborators from across the North of England, with 90-second pitches, emerging technology showcases and opportunities to build new sector partnerships.

🩸 16.07 | MedTech Careers AHEAD 2026 Edition | London, UK: A careers-focused medtech event at the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering, bringing together students, early-career professionals and sector voices to explore routes into medical technology and healthcare 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.

Welcome to the knockout rounds,

This week, it’s all kicking off: Cambridge scientists have base-edited a master regulator out of team of human embryos, Salk Institute researchers found that iron plays a long game before neurons finally give in, Beeline added $126M to its immunology war chest, Ipsen paid up to $1.7B to sign Kartos’s myelofibrosis therapy, and Saudi Arabia is warming up for the the 2034 World Cup, instigating a biotech line-up for September’s Riyadh Global Medical Biotechnology Summit.

Catch you at half-time,

Dodo

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Democratizing drug development

From bespoke labs to systemic change. Explore tools to accelerate in vivo genomic medicine development.

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🥇 World-first gene editing application unveils master regulator of human embryo development (BioTechniques): Cambridge researchers, led by Kathy Niakan, have used adenine base editing to disable a crucial DNA-binding transcription factor in human embryos. It’s the first time the technique has been let loose on a developmental regulator in humans. Losing the pluripotency gene wrecked epiblast specification and sent cells hurtling toward primitive endoderm or trophectoderm instead. The approach caused no genotoxicity and showed rather limited off-target editing.

Our take: Niakan’s 2017 paper documented that CRISPR in human embryos reliably caused chromosome loss, precisely why embryo genome editing has spent years in the naughty corner. Base editing swaps one nucleotide for another without going near a double-strand cut, sidestepping it all. It is the first time base editing has probed gene function in human embryos, and rewriting is what’s possible faster than regulators can catch up.

🧠 Iron accumulation drives neurodegeneration via chronic stress pathway (GEN): Salk Institute researchers have identified chronoferroptosis, a persistent ferroptotic adaptation in neuronal cells, caused by sustained iron dysregulation. They found that the duration of iron stress, rather than the amount, seals a cell’s fate. Cells only lose resilience after prolonged exposure, priming for age-related failure. The lab has already cooked up compounds to inhibit the pathway.

Our take: Iron chelation has spent years bouncing between promise and disappointment. Deferiprone showed neuroprotective benefit in early Parkinson’s trials, then rather awkwardly worsened motor symptoms in later ones, leaving the field bewildered about when to intervene. Chronoferroptosis offers a neater explanation for that inconsistency. Chelating iron in patients who have already spent decades accumulating it may be arriving at the party a little too late.

🐝 Beeline adds $126M to Bain-backed immunology pipeline from Bristol Myers (Endpoints): The Series A extension brings total funding to $426M, the third-largest life sciences round this year behind only Isomorphic Labs and NewLimit. The Bain Capital-backed spinout is developing five immunology assets in-licensed from Bristol Myers Squibb last July, with BMS retaining a 20% stake. Lead asset afimetoran, a once-daily oral TLR7/8 inhibitor for lupus, expects Phase 2 data later this summer.

Our take: Bain Capital has run this precise playbook three times before, spinning SpringWorks out of Pfizer for a $3.9B exit, Cerevel out of Pfizer for $8.7B, and Chinese biotech assets into Aiolos and Timberlyne. And guess what? The same CEO from SpringWorks is now piloting Beeline! This is private equity platform-building dressed in a lab coat, and the returns have been outrageously good.

🖋️ Ipsen pens $1.7B deal to acquire Kartos for potential Jakafi add-on therapy for myelofibrosis (FiercePharma): The French pharma is stumping up $450M upfront, potentially climbing to $1.7B, for Kartos and its Phase 3 asset navtemadlin, an oral MDM2 inhibitor being tested as a Jakafi add-on for myelofibrosis patients who respond poorly to the standard drug. Rezatapopt, PMV Pharmaceuticals’ p53 reactivator, is thrown in for good measure after a jolly promising 43% response rate in mid-phase ovarian cancer trials.

Our take: Ipsen has been busily patching up its oncology bench after the withdrawal of Tazverik, its EZH2 inhibitor, on rather awkward safety grounds. They have since been hoovering up assets like there’s no tomorrow, striking ADC deals with Foreseen Biotech and Simcere Zaiming, and picking up ImCheck Therapeutics for its immuno-oncology work. Kartos is the latest, and shows how a single ugly withdrawal drives years of dealmaking.

And finally…

🇸🇦 Riyadh Global Medical Biotechnology Summit announces scientific program for 2026 edition (BioSpace): The fourth edition of RGMBS, running 14-16 September in Riyadh, will span AI in biotech, multi-omics, biotech investment, immunology, bioengineering, and workforce development. The summit lines up with Saudi Arabia’s National Biotechnology Strategy, which rather ambitiously targets a $34.6B contribution to non-oil GDP by 2040. Previous editions have produced 59 partnership agreements with the likes of Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Novo Nordisk.

Our take: Saudi Arabia is copying Singapore’s homework with more haste than the original, by building the first Middle Eastern jurisdiction where a global pharma company could plausibly develop, manufacture, register, and sell a drug end-to-end without leaving the country. Singapore spent 25 years assembling that stack from scratch, and Riyadh is trying to compress it into 15, without the workforce to draw on.

Tune in 🎧

🍅 Frankenfood | The Mistake Series: Malcolm dispatches Ben to investigate two pivotal errors in food technology – one from the 1990s GM tomato era, one still unfolding – and what they reveal about public trust in engineered food.

👶 The dawn of the designer baby: Jenny Kleeman investigates entrepreneur Cathy Tie’s controversial bid to commercialise embryo gene editing, and what it means for the future of human reproduction.

🌡️ Europe swelters in ‘heat dome’, and Martin Rees on aliens: The science behind Europe’s record-breaking June temperatures, declining HPV vaccine uptake, malaria’s 500,000-year grip on humanity, and Lord Martin Rees on the search for extraterrestrial life.

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🛠 Forward Deployed AI Engineer, Latent Labs: Fancy deploying frontier biology models into pharma pipelines? You’ll own end-to-end customer integrations, build production-grade APIs, and translate real-world deployment learnings.

🧪 Biochemical Scientist, LanthaGen Bio: Fancy engineering proteins to fish rare metals out of electronic waste? You’ll run biochemical and biophysical assays, optimise protein expression and purification, and feed experimental data directly into a computational pipeline.

✏️ Scientific Editor, Device, Cell Press: Got a sharp eye for applied science that matters? You’ll evaluate submissions, shape editorial direction, coordinate special issues, and champion technology and engineering research across the Cell Press portfolio.

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👩‍🔬 08.07 | Women in Biotech - Canary Wharf | London, UK: Hosted by the BIA, this evening of panel discussion and networking gathers CFOs from across the biotech ecosystem to share candid perspectives on building investor relationships, raising capital and championing women in leadership. Open to all.

🥼09.07 | Disrupting Bio Innovation | Cambridge, UK: Explore the breakthrough technologies, policies, and business models reshaping drug discovery and development, with a focus on translating cutting-edge research into diagnostics and treatments.

🩸16.07 | MedTech Careers AHEAD 2026 Edition | London, UK: Are you looking to launch or grow your career in healthcare engineering and medical technology? Join us for an evening of networking.

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.

Welcome to those still standing,

This week, Keir Starmer isn't the only one having a bad time: one of Oxford's brightest biotech hopes has been dragged into liquidation, a French startup is waving the white flag on severed nerves with a clever goo, RQ Bio has surrendered to the seasonal flu grind with a long-acting antibody, a new eye drug could make dreaded eyeball injections a far rarer event, and old mice are staging a small rebellion with youthful gut bacteria.

Surrender accepted,

Dodo

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📈 Record-breaking UK biotech firm in near £3 million collapse (Oxford Mail): How the mighty have fallen. OxStem Limited, a once high-flying Oxford biotech, backed by a then-record £16.9m spinout investment, has collapsed in a complex liquidation battle. The company, which aimed to tackle ageing-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, was still seeking funding for clinical trials as recently as 2019, before financial trouble set in. Liquidators were appointed in 2022, but the winding-up remains unresolved.

Our take: A headline-grabbing cheque does not always buy survival. The University of Oxford – which spun OxStem out, supplied its founding science and championed its record investment – now sits as a creditor, chasing more than £3m from its own creation through arbitration. Oxford is on every side of the table at once (founder, backer and claimant), a tangle that is precisely why the liquidation has dragged on for three years with no end in sight.

🤕 A startup is using special polymers to better help nerves heal (Wired): French startup Tissium has developed a biodegradable goo that might help severed nerves knit back together after surgery. Made from fatty acids and glycerol, the material acts as a temporary splint, holding damaged nerves steady while the body sets about its own repairs. In a US trial of 12 patients with finger nerve injuries, all who completed follow-up regained the ability to feel temperature, pain, texture and light touch, vs a meaningful recovery rate of just 54% for the sutures it would replace.

Our take: A clean run across the patients who completed the trial is a charming result on a thin evidence base. The commercial test will be whether better sensation and fewer complications are achieved in larger, more diverse patient groups. A 200-patient US hernia trial and an upcoming cardiovascular pivotal trial will be the real proving ground for the polymer platform; surgeons and hospitals, quite understandably, will want consistency at scale before reaching for the goo.

🤧 RQ Bio raises $115m for long-acting flu antibody (European Biotechnology Magazine): The London-based company has raised a hefty Series A to push RQB01, a long-acting flu-prevention antibody, towards the clinic. Backed by life sciences investors and LifeArc Ventures, the firm’s vision is to develop a single jab to shield vulnerable patients for a whole season. RQB01 targets conserved parts of the virus that do not change year to year, the idea being that one shot covers broad strains where vaccines alone fall short.

Our take: RQ Bio is chasing a narrow target: vulnerable patients whose immune systems cannot mount an adequate response to a vaccine. The trouble is, everyone else is chasing it too. Better mRNA vaccines, rival antibodies and nasal sprays like Leyden Labs’ are all converging on the same small group. RQB01’s pitch is one jab for a whole season, but it has to prove that the gap is wide enough to justify this much capital.

👀 Ollin refuels with $330M to back pivotal tests of Vabysmo challenger (BioPharmaDive): Ollin Biosciences is pushing ahead with its lead eye disease drug OLN324 into pivotal trials, in one of biotech’s biggest venture rounds of the year. The antibody is being lined up as a challenger to Roche’s Vabysmo, which racked up around $5B in 2025 after less than four full years on the market. Early data hints that OLN324 may prove more potent and longer-lasting than the incumbent.

Our take: Beating Vabysmo on raw efficacy is not the prize Ollin is chasing. The real game is to change the treatment calculus for diseases in which patients currently endure repeated jabs into the eyeball over many years. If OLN324 can meaningfully extend durability, the real value will lie in reducing clinic capacity pressure, patient burden and long-term treatment fatigue.

And finally…

💩 Faecal transplant makes the brains of old mice act young again (The New Scientist): Transplanting gut microbiomes from younger animals has been shown to boost brain plasticity, enhancing the brain’s ability to remodel itself and form new connections. Treated mice exhibited responses similar to young animals, suggesting their brains had regained some adaptability. Additionally, the study revealed that disrupting the microbiome in young mice with antibiotics affected more than 1,000 genes in the visual cortex.

Our take: Brain plasticity has always been considered fixed after childhood. If the gut microbiome really does govern this adaptability, early-life antibiotics and diet may matter more than appreciated. Faecal transplants may be a crude starting point, but the implications run deep: disorders currently written off as untreatable after childhood – like amblyopia, or lazy eye – might not be so permanent after all.

Tune in 🎧

🧑‍🔬 BIO International Convention 2026: Former Evotec CEO Werner Lanthaler explains why BIO is the industry’s most important partnering forum, and shares practical, hard-won advice for biotechs.

🧪 Keeping an early-stage cell therapy biotech in the black with IN8bio’s William Ho: A candid, step-by-step account of financing a gamma delta T-cell company through a tough IPO market and prolonged cash constraints.

🔥 A pipeline in a product that reimagines control of inflammation: BioAegis CEO Susan Levinson discusses recombinant human plasma gelsolin as a potential first-in-class therapy for ARDS and other inflammasome-driven diseases.

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🧬 Business Development Manager, Biocytogen: Ready to bridge science and dealmaking in biopharma? You’ll combine deep scientific expertise with commercial acumen to source opportunities, lead negotiations, and represent the company at global conferences.

🔬 Senior Scientist, Evotec: Interested in leading complex biologics programmes from design to delivery? You’ll drive antibody and protein engineering projects end-to-end, overseeing experimental strategy, high-throughput workflows, and data quality.

🦀 Clinical Study Lead, In Vitro Diagnostics, QIAGEN: Passionate about driving global studies for precision oncology diagnostics? You’ll lead full clinical performance programmes, designing protocols, managing cross-functional teams and sites, and delivering regulatory submissions.

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🕶️ 02.07 | BIA Summer Party | London, UK: Join the sector’s finest for an unforgettable evening of cocktails, canapés, and high-level networking. Whether you’re looking to connect with peers or showcase your brand, the Summer Party offers the perfect setting.

💡 04-08.07 | 50th FEBS Congress | Maastricht, Netherlands: A landmark gathering in molecular and cellular life sciences featuring Nobel laureates and global research leaders, with plenary lectures and 17 symposia showcasing the latest discoveries across the field.

🥼 09.07 | Disrupting Bio Innovation | Cambridge, UK: Explore the breakthrough technologies, policies and business models reshaping drug discovery, with a focus on translating cutting-edge research into diagnostics and treatments.

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 regenerating readers,

The streamers have barely come down from last week’s 100th issue milestone, and we’re at it again – this old Bird turns two this week!

In celebration, this week’s stories: machine learning breathes new life into natural product discovery, Berlin’s drug pricing reform hits a midlife crisis, mRNA flu vaccines outlast the standard shot, oral Wegovy is the new kid on the block in UK pharmacies, and Texas A&M coaxes mammalian regeneration out of dormancy – encouraging news for a bird with a complicated relationship to extinction.

Many happy returns,

Dodo

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

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🌿 Machine learning identifies natural compound to treat lung disease (News Medical): Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a devastating disease with a median survival of 3–5 years. Using machine learning, researchers screened 16,700+ herbal compounds and landed on dihydromyricetin (DHM), a flavonoid from the Japanese raisin tree, which blocks ALK5 – the receptor that drives TGF-β signalling and with it lung fibrosis. In a mouse study, DHM shrank fibrotic lesions while showing a better safety profile than existing drugs.

Our take: Current pharmacotherapies, including pirfenidone and nintedanib, only slow IPF’s decline and do not halt or reverse fibrosis. That is what makes DHM interesting. Blocking ALK5 directly is a sharper shot at the fibrotic process itself, and in a disease this short on options, a cleaner mechanism is urgently needed. The catch is that TGF-β also works as a tumour suppressor; researchers have reported that blocking it has been linked to skin cancers in trials, so the trick will be silencing it in the lung without activating it everywhere else.

🇩🇪 German government to abandon variable drug discounting plans (Reuters): Berlin has dropped the variable rebate mechanism from its healthcare reform bill following intense industry pushback, replacing it with a fixed-rate discount so companies can plan ahead. The climbdown came after drugmakers threatened to pull money out, with Lilly halving a planned €2.3B German investment and AstraZeneca and Pfizer issuing similar threats. It is only a single concession though; the wider reform package keeps its price freeze extension and binding price-volume discounts.

Our take: Germany is trying to close a €20B funding gap, and the drug industry has just shown how much leverage it holds over that effort, with a single threat to pull investment enough to make the government u-turn on one of its cost-cutting measures within weeks. This has implications across Europe, where health systems face the same funding pressures. Both sides have now learnt the same lesson: pressure works, making any similar reform harder for the next government.

💉 mRNA Flu vaccine shows stronger, longer-lasting immune response (GEN): New research published in Nature Immunology shows Moderna's mRNA-1010 produced broader and longer-lasting antibody responses than a standard flu shot, and recognised strains the shot was not built to target. Five of 13 recipients developed germinal centre responses in the lymph nodes lasting the full 26 weeks, against none of the 15 people on the standard flu shot.

Our take: This is the first solid evidence the mRNA platform does something biologically different to standard flu shots, not just a stronger version of the same response. It lands at a pointed moment: mRNA-1010 was hit with a rare refusal-to-file in February, then won a unanimous 9-0 vote from the FDA’s advisory committee this week, with the final decision due 5 August. Reject it now and the FDA overrules its own experts, a hard position to defend.

💊 Weight-loss drug Wegovy to be available in pill form in UK for first time (BBC News): The MHRA has cleared Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide for prescription in the UK, the first oral GLP-1 approved for weight management. Taken once daily on an empty stomach, the tablet offers an alternative for patients who cannot or will not inject; at 25mg, it carries more than ten times the semaglutide of the injected version. NHS access depends on a NICE assessment Novo Nordisk has yet to initiate.

Our take: The appeal is obvious – a daily pill reaches people who would never inject. The catch is the dose: Wegovy compensates for how little semaglutide survives digestion by loading in far more of it, keeping manufacturing costs stubbornly high. Lilly’s orforglipron, by comparison, is a non-peptide small molecule, which is far cheaper to make at scale. Once orforglipron reaches the UK, Wegovy pills’ position becomes far more precarious, and Novo Nordisk knows it.

And finally…

🦎 Humans may have hidden regenerative powers (ScienceDaily): Texas A&M researchers have regrown amputated body parts in mice, restoring bone, joint, tendon and ligament after digit amputation, though imperfectly. The trick was two growth factors applied in sequence, FGF2 followed five days later by BMP2, which coaxed the wound’s own cells away from forming scar tissue and toward a salamander-like regrowth structure instead. BMP2 already holds FDA approval for spinal fusion and FGF2 is in multiple clinical trials.

Our take: The “hidden regenerative powers” headline writes itself, but the research team is more measured. The near-term prize is scar reduction, not limb regrowth. Fibrosis wrecks healing in burns, surgical wounds and amputations, and even a modest shift away from scarring would matter enormously to patients with no good option. Because both growth factors are already in or near the clinic, that prize could arrive far sooner than any regrown limb. Regeneration, alas, comes too late for this particular bird.

Tune in 🎧

🧠 The Woman Who Felt No Fear: Neuropsychologist Justin Feinstein recounts experiments with a patient whose non-functioning amygdala left her virtually fearless, and the single stimulus that finally triggered panic.

🕊️ Nikola Tesla Fell in Love with a Pigeon: Michael and Hannah explore the physics of Tesla coils and his vision for wireless electricity, alongside the stranger corners of his life – pearl phobias, hypnosis, and an unlikely devotion to one particular bird.

🤖 Cybernetics: Misha Glenny and guests trace how Norbert Wiener’s 1948 framework for studying communication, feedback and control across animals and machines laid the intellectual groundwork for the information age.

Apply ✍️

🎬 Director, CMC Regulatory Affairs, GSK: Got the instincts to steer small molecules through global regulatory scrutiny? You’ll lead CMC strategy across investigational and commercial programmes, identify risks, and keep patient supply firmly on course.

💪 Clinical Development Medical Director, Novartis: Fancy guiding neuromuscular therapies from trial to approval? You'll lead clinical strategy, drive regulatory submissions, and engage KOLs and advisory boards across Novartis's global neuroscience pipeline.

🔬 Senior Development Scientist, Portal Biotech: Keen to productise cutting-edge proteomics? You’ll lead experimental programmes, translate feasibility findings into platform-ready workflows, and manage a team at Portal’s White City headquarters.

RSVP 📆

🧬 22-25.06 | BIO International Convention | San Diego, USA: The world’s largest biotech gathering convenes 20,000+ global leaders across pharma, biotech, academia, government and investment, with a strong focus on business development through its BIO Partnering platform, enabling targeted one-to-one meetings.

🩻 23.06 | 9th Annual Workshop on Advances in X-ray Imaging | Manchester, UK: Join scientists from across fields to discuss developments and applications of various X-ray imaging and complementary techniques, and to build international collaborations.

👩‍🔬 08.07 | Women in Biotech - Canary Wharf | London, UK: Hosted by the BIA, this evening of panel discussion and networking gathers CFOs from across the biotech ecosystem to share candid perspectives on building investor relationships, raising capital and championing women in leadership. Open to all.

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 caffeinated comrades,

Crack open the bourbons and pop the kettle on, we’ve hit 100 issues! The biotech news just keeps on brewing, and your favourite Dodo has all the tea…

This week: Cambridge scientists brew up an AI-designed vaccine to stay ahead of COVID’s mutations, a new US alliance pours firepower into the biotech space race with China, GSK opens its cheque book for a multibillion-pound oncology buy, a new radiotherapy slashes cancer sessions for England’s prostate patients, and a morning cup of joe could hold the key to future cell therapies.

Happy latte sipping!

Dodo

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

Discover 🔍

☢️ Vaccine made by AI will shield against mutations (The Times): Cambridge researchers have trialled a new “universal” coronavirus vaccine in humans for the first time. Using AI, they’ve designed an antigen targeting the parts of the virus that stay fixed as it mutates, in the hope the jab protects against current strains and variants yet to emerge. In an early trial of 39 volunteers the vaccine triggered immune responses across the Sarbeco family – Covid, SARS and related bat viruses with pandemic potential.

Our take: The clever bit is which part of the virus the vaccine teaches the immune system to attack. Seasonal jabs aim at the spike protein, the part that mutates fastest, which is why they need reformulating every year. This one aims at the structural core a coronavirus struggles to change without breaking itself, so each new variant should still carry it and still get recognised.

🚀 New biotech group rises to fuel American rockets in China space race (BioSpace): A new lobbying group is in town and wants the US to stop talking about China’s rise and start building its own plan. The American Biotech Innovation Alliance, founded by Patroski Lawson and backed by around 50 companies, including Moderna, is pushing for a national biotech strategy by 2027, aiming to unite industry, academia and investors behind a coordinated roadmap for biomedical innovation.

Our take: It’s worth looking a little closer at who is holding the pen... Lawson runs a lobbying shop paid by biotechs, and the founding roster is the incumbents with the most to lose from Chinese undercutting. A ‘national strategy’ from that quarter could mean domestic tax breaks, quicker approvals and a wall around Chinese trial data, with the framing turning plain self-interest into something Congress can salute.

🤑 GSK makes biggest ever acquisition with $10.6bn for US cancer drug firm (The Guardian): The UK pharma giant is rebuilding its oncology ambitions and buying Nuvalent, a Boston biotech with two late-stage non-small cell lung cancer drugs – zidesamtinib and neladalkib – under FDA review. If approved, both could launch later this year and become multi-billion-dollar products. The deal also gives GSK access to Nuvalent’s wider lung cancer pipeline, including Ris-Rez, a late-stage candidate that could treat multiple forms of cancer.

Our take: What GSK is buying here is a launch, with the pipeline as a bonus. Both lead drugs face FDA decisions in September and November, so the $10.6B buys products that could be on the market within months. After a run of modest bolt-ons, Miels has gone big on near-term, de-risked assets to plug the revenue gap before the patent cliffs bite, Ris-Rez the longer-term upside thrown in.

💩 Advanced radiotherapy for prostate cancer to cut sessions from 20 to five (BBC News): The NHS is rolling out stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) to thousands of men with early prostate cancer, with all 48 NHS England radiotherapy centres expected to start offering it within weeks. The technique fires precisely targeted doses from many directions, paring back side effects and hastening recovery. Around 3,500 patients a year are likely to opt in, a sizeable shift towards leaner, less gruelling cancer care.

Our take: SABR could become a pressure release valve for the cancer backlog. Cutting prostate sessions by three quarters frees up staff capacity across stretched cancer services while handing back valuable machine time to every other cancer in the queue. The dividend is narrower than the headline implies though, with only 3,500 of 17,500 eligible men expected to take it up.

And finally…

☕ AI reimagines caffeine as a molecular off‑switch for engineered cells (GEN): Texas A&M researchers have used AI-guided protein design to create CODS, a caffeine-operated molecular switch that acts like a cellular “pause button” with a synthetic mini‑binder designed using the BindCraft platform. In early lab tests, caffeine could switch off gene circuits, trigger engineered cell death and temporarily dampen CAR-T cell activity, pointing to safer, more responsive future cell therapies.

Our take: Patient caffeine intake varies wildly, and a heavy coffee drinker has a very different baseline from someone who avoids the stuff. Therapeutic CAR-T deactivation needs precise pharmacokinetic control, and caffeine clearance swings up to 40-fold between individuals thanks to CYP1A2 variants – so the same cup that trips the switch in one patient could barely register in another. And because caffeine is everywhere, patients (and doctors) would have to police every coffee, tea and cola to avoid setting it off by accident.

Tune in 🎧

🧬 Ardelyx Leaders Mike Raab & Laura Williams on building biotech around patients: How embedding patient advocacy into Ardelyx has shaped its culture and steadied it through setbacks, from the leaders who drove it.

📅 The editors’ roundtable: A midyear look at the 2026 life sciences industry: LSC joins Business of Biotech host Tyler Menichiello to unpack key industry trends shaping 2026, from AI-driven manufacturing regulation and supply chain pressures to IPO signals.

🍼 Milk Proteins without the dairy: Adam Tarshis and Dr. Cory Tobin explain how Mozza is building a better dairy alternative, using microbial fermenters to brew the proteins behind cheese’s stretch, texture and bite.

Apply ✍️

🤖 Account Manager, PROCEPT BioRobotics: Ready to grow robotic BPH surgery adoption across target hospitals? You’ll build territory plans, support surgeons and surgical teams, lead account reviews, drive Aquabeam utilisation, and manage forecasts and CRM reporting.

💰 Business Development Manager, Biosynth: Interested in turning pharma and biotech prospects into long-term clients? You’ll drive forward the sales process, build a strong industry network, negotiate contracts, spot market opportunities, and work with marketing and BD teams to grow the Life Sciences division.

🩻 Field Applications Specialist, Beckman Coulter Diagnostic: Want to help labs get more from diagnostic IT and automation systems? You’ll deliver application support, train laboratory teams, support installations and go-lives, troubleshoot customer issues, and work with sales and service colleagues to improve workflows.

RSVP 📆

🤑 15.06 | Capital For Cures Liquidity Event – Royalty Financing | Amsterdam, Netherlands: This networking and panel event brings together investors, family offices and biotech innovators to discuss royalty financing, with a focus on how non-dilutive capital can fund breakthroughs while preserving long-term value.

🩺 15–18.06 | HLTH Europe 2026 | Amsterdam, Netherlands: Europe’s biggest healthcare innovation gathering hauls 5,000+ leaders to Amsterdam, with one in three at the C-suite level, to thrash out the continent’s particular healthcare headaches and opportunities.

🧬 22-25.06 | BIO International Convention | San Diego, USA: The world’s largest biotech gathering convenes 20,000+ global leaders across pharma, biotech, academia, government and investment, with a strong focus on business development and partnering.

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 my fellow lab rats,

This week, Swedish researchers break free of biological constraints with artificial heart muscle made from conductive plastic, SMArT liberates CRISPR from its genomic baggage filtering dangerous edits before they reach patients, Osaka scientists unleash tomato-picking robots, Chinese biotech escapes its discount-era pricing, and the FDA releases cancer drug development from mandatory animal testing.

Free at last,

Dodo

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

Discover 🔍

🫀 Scientists create conductive plastic to replicate heart muscle cells (Bioengineer.org): Researchers at Linköping University, led by Simone Fabiano, have built an artificial cardiomyocyte from conductive polymers, the first contraption to recreate the slow calcium channel dynamics that drive cardiac contraction. Published in Nature Communications, the device handles both ionic and electronic conductivity, paving the way for biocompatible pacemakers, sensors for cardiac disturbances, and implants for muscular dystrophy or nerve injury.

Our take: Fabiano’s gang previously built artificial organic neurons emulating sodium and potassium channels. The cardiomyocyte adds slow calcium kinetics, a rather thornier piece of biology inorganic electronics have never got the hang of. Linköping is methodically working through the body’s electrically excitable cell types in plastic, a rather more ambitious programme. The commercial path seems to be bioelectronic medicine, in which polymers sidestep silicon’s immune-related issues.

🧬 New SMArT platform improves safety of CRISPR gene editing (News Medical): Edited blood stem cells can now be enriched to near-purity, thanks to SMArT, a CRISPR add-on built by Luigi Naldini’s San Raffaele Telethon group. The platform uses transient synthetic AND-gate reporters to hoover out cells carrying potentially harmful genomic alterations. The most advanced version uses a single CRISPR regulatory system to detect correct integration and switch on genes that may improve stem cell engraftment.

Our take: Two earlier sickle cell trials were paused after patients developed myeloid malignancies, traced to cytotoxic conditioning or insertional mutagenesis from lentiviral vectors. CRISPR was meant to be the cleaner alternative by editing in situ, though the risk simply migrated, with large deletions and chromosomal rearrangements from Cas9 cuts emerging as the new bogeyman. SMArT concedes the field couldn’t engineer those out and built a sorting system to find the survivors.

🍅 Scientists develop virtual tomato training arena for agricultural robots (Phys.org): 3D Gaussian splatting and Unreal Engine 5, more commonly the domain of video games, have been put to work generating synthetic training data for tomato-picking robots. The virtual farm, built by Takuya Fujinaga’s team at Osaka Metropolitan University, automatically produces images and YOLO-formatted labels for AI vision systems, sidestepping the slog of hand annotation, with plans already underway to extend the approach to other crops.

Our take: The bottleneck in agricultural AI isn’t the hardware these days – robots can already pick tomatoes at 86.7% accuracy, and the kit has been steadily improving for years. The constraint is the vision system telling them which one to pick, and those systems run on labelled training data that farms have been paying humans to produce, season after season. A virtual farm doing that labour for free should generalise across crops.

🇨🇳 No longer a bargain pool, Chinese biotechs command higher premiums (BioSpace): Total deal value for China-developed assets has risen to $10.1B so far this year, a sharp escalation from previous discount-driven dynamics. Eli Lilly leads as the most aggressive buyer with over $13B committed since March 2025. Platform deals are replacing single-asset licensing as the dominant transaction model, and Chinese biotechs are increasingly demanding upfront payments closer to those of comparable US counterparts.

Our take: The bargain bin has closed. Royalty rates on Chinese deals have settled at the 10-13% range now standard for these deals, with single-digit royalties largely vanished. Astellas-Hutchmed was the last big single-digit deal, and rates that had previously sunk to 2-3% are gone for good. The economics have reset entirely, leaving Western buyers paying more upfront and more in perpetuity, changing the calculation for anyone still treating China as a value play.

And finally…

🐭 FDA ends mandatory animal testing for cancer therapeutics effective June 2026 (GeneOnline News): Draft guidance issued on 29 May proposes to reduce animal testing in nonclinical safety studies for oncology biologics and conjugated products, with public comments open until 30 July. The guidance builds on FDAMA 2.0, which removed the blanket animal-testing mandate in 2022, and supplements existing ICH and FDA frameworks. It signals the agency’s broader push to embrace new approach methodologies, including organs-on-chips and in silico modelling.

Our take: Animal models have less than 8% correlation with human clinical trial outcomes in oncology, which makes preclinical mouse testing in cancer not so much ethically uncomfortable as scientifically rather suspect. The FDA isn’t being kind – it’s catching up. Mouse xenografts have failed to predict human cancer responses for decades, and the draft guidance simply acknowledges what every oncology developer has known for years. From one Dodo to a great many laboratory pals, this bird says good riddance.

Tune in 🎧

🦠 Why the Ebola Outbreak Has Been Nearly Impossible to Stop: NYT Africa correspondent Declan Walsh reports from the epicentre of one of the worst Ebola outbreaks in history, examining why under-resourced health workers are struggling to contain its spread.

⌛ The past, present and future of DNA science: Professor Turi King traces DNA science from forensic fingerprinting to medical screening, and what her book reveals about the secrets genetics has yet to unlock.

🧠 Outside of Our Minds: Anthropologists, historians, and a brain-computer interface researcher trace how humans have externalised thought from stone carvings to AI, and where the next frontier of communication may lead.

Apply ✍️

🥼 Senior lab Technician, Portal Biotech: Think you could keep a single-molecule protein sequencing platform stocked, safe, and shipshape? You'll own reagent prep, inventory, equipment servicing, and lab operations that are scaling quickly toward a global product launch.

🎬 Associate Director Safety Sciences, BioNTech: Got a forensic eye for emerging safety signals in oncology? You'll oversee safety surveillance, author DSURs and Risk Management Plans, contribute to regulatory submissions, and act as Subject Matter Expert.

⚙️ GMP Production Biotechnologist, OXB: Ready to get hands-on with viral vector manufacture at one of gene therapy's original pioneers? You'll lead GMP processes, act as SME for SOPs and batch documentation, and train others across lentivirus, AAV, and adenoviral programmes.

RSVP 📆

🖥️ 08–12.06 | London Tech Week | London, UK: Europe’s premier tech gathering – drawing innovators, investors and enterprise leaders to hear from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Isomorphic Labs and the UK government on what’s next in tech.

🔬 10–12.06 | BioInference 2026 | St Andrews, UK: A three-day academic conference at Scotland’s oldest university, bringing together statisticians and biologists to tackle inference problems across epidemiology, genomics, spatial omics, and mathematical biology.

🤑 15.06 | Capital For Cures Liquidity Event – Royalty Financing | Amsterdam, Netherlands: This networking and panel event brings together investors, family offices and biotech innovators to discuss royalty financing, with a focus on how non-dilutive capital can fund breakthroughs while preserving long-term value.

🩺 15–18.06 | HLTH Europe 2026 | Amsterdam, Netherlands: Europe’s biggest healthcare innovation gathering hauls 5,000+ leaders to Amsterdam, with one in three at C-suite level, to thrash out the continent’s particular healthcare headaches and opportunities.

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 pipette pioneers,

This week: a skin-worn ultrasound keeps watch over babies in the womb, Oxford scientists scramble to ready an Ebola jab as an outbreak rages, Eli Lilly goes on a vaccine shopping spree, US lawmakers eye Chinese biotech deals with fresh suspicion, a new solid tumour treatment treats its first patient, and a start-up reckons it can grow sperm in a lab.

Mind the petri dish!

Dodo

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

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👶 Scientists create wearable ultrasound to continuously monitor babies in womb (The Guardian): A new skin-worn device could give doctors a continuous, real-time view of foetal health, rather than relying on occasional snapshots during clinic visits. Where current methods rely on intermittent scans or imprecise continuous monitoring, the “UPatch” tracks foetal heart rate and blood flow as the baby moves about. Early trials in the US and UK show it matches traditional ultrasound accuracy.

Our take: Continuous monitoring could unlock far deeper understanding of why some babies survive in the womb and others don’t – and the researchers are clear that preventing stillbirth is the ambition. In one case, the patch flagged severe growth restriction in a pre-eclamptic patient, prompting a life-saving early C-section. The potential is particularly significant in low-resource settings, where repeated clinic scans and skilled operators are hard to come by.

💉 UK scientists developing Ebola vaccine that could be ready for trials in months (BBC News): Oxford scientists are racing to adapt their Covid-era vaccine platform for a rare but deadly Ebola strain now driving an emergency outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The experimental Bundibugyo jab could reach clinical trials within two to three months, though plenty of uncertainty remains. Should it work, it would be deployed through ring vaccination, targeting close contacts and frontline health workers.

Our take: The harder problem here is logistics, not immunology. A Bundibugyo response leans on spotting cases quickly through community surveillance, tracing complex contact networks to break transmission, and getting jabs to remote settings where cold-chain kit and reliable transport are frequently nowhere to be found. A clever vaccine counts for little if the machinery meant to deliver it buckles under the pressure of an escalating epidemic.

💰 Eli Lilly to buy three small vaccine developers (STAT): Eli Lilly has snapped up three early- and mid-stage vaccine developers in deals worth up to nearly $4B, each pairing an upfront payment with milestones tied to clinical and regulatory progress. Curevo brings a shingles jab designed to improve on the tolerability of GSK’s Shingrix, LimmaTech a Staphylococcus aureus vaccine with surgical infection prevention in mind, and Vaccine Company an Epstein-Barr virus candidate linked to long-term risk reduction for multiple sclerosis and several cancers.

Our take: The targets are vaccines against pathogens known to trigger chronic complications downstream – shingles with stroke risk, EBV with multiple sclerosis and cancer. That framing nudges Lilly beyond straightforward prevention into disease modification territory, and helps make the commercial case at a time of broader pressure on vaccine manufacturers. The buys fold neatly into a GLP-1-funded acquisition spree that has now reached oncology, autoimmune disease, sleep disorders, and infectious disease in the space of a year.

🧬 Ori Biotech and ImmuXell announce strategic partnership and dose first patient (BioSpace): The first patient has been dosed in an investigator-initiated trial targeting KRAS G12V-mutated solid tumours, including colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and lung cancer. Shanghai-based ImmuXell partnered with Ori Biotech, using their IRO® platform to manufacture the TCR-T cell therapy in just four months.

Our take: For cancers with no good treatment options, speed to patients is everything – and cell therapy manufacturing has historically been slow, expensive, and difficult to scale. IRO® is designed to eliminate those tradeoffs: speed without sacrificing quality, scale without sacrificing cost. If it delivers on that promise more broadly, the implications for patient access go well beyond this trial.

🇨🇳 As calls for COINS Act expansion grow, will new rules sweep up China biotech licensing? (Fierce Biotech): As American biopharma increasingly looks to China for faster, cheaper innovation, some US policymakers want biotechnology folded into the Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security (COINS) Act, which restricts outbound investment in sensitive sectors. Supporters argue intervention is needed to protect domestic innovation and competitiveness.

Our take: This change could bring fresh scrutiny to licensing deals, NewCo structures, and joint ventures with Chinese assets – potentially slowing dealmaking and pushing up costs. Chinese biotech assets have become attractive partly because they can offer strong clinical data, faster development timelines and lower costs than Western assets. But if every deal starts carrying extra legal review, government notification and political risk, the economics begin to change.

And finally…

🍆 Will lab-grown sperm let infertile men have children of their own? (The New Scientist): A US start-up is claiming it can grow sperm in the lab for men who produce none of their own. Paterna Biosciences says it can take stem cells from the testes and coax them into sperm cells, potentially opening a fresh route to biological fatherhood. The unmet need is real enough, particularly for men who produce no sperm and have precious few options as things stand.

Our take: This is not a blanket fix for male infertility. Even if Paterna can do what it claims, patients would still need viable stem cells in the testes to harvest in the first place. For men whose infertility stems from genetic defects, lab-grown sperm may therefore need pairing with gene editing – which raises the prospect of gene-edited children, one of bioethics’ most contested territories.

Tune in 🎧

🤑 $250M VC explains women’s health market: endometriosis & PCOS: This episode explores why conditions like endometriosis and PCOS remain underdiagnosed and underfunded, despite the growing investor interest in femtech.

🧑‍🔬 From pipettes to python: How to break into computational biology: Dean Lee shares how he built credibility from a bench science background; learned scRNA-seq analysis on the side; and turned self-directed projects, reproducibility work, and public data into a real path into comp bio.

💊 Rare disease drug commercialisation with Zevra Therapeutics’ Neil McFarlane: Zevra’s CEO explores building a focused rare disease company through acquisitions, scaling commercialisation, partnering with patient advocacy groups, and using AI to identify undiagnosed patients.

Apply ✍️

🤝 External Partner Manager, Bristol Myers Squibb: Want to sit at the intersection of science, strategy, and supplier management? You’ll lead relationships with CDMOs, drive joint governance and performance via VDOTs, and translate technical development needs into commercial agreements.

🧫 Biotechnologist, Lonza: Ready to build hands-on GMP manufacturing experience from the ground up? You’ll support production at Lonza’s Slough facility, learn key quality systems like deviations and change control, and help keep manufacturing safe, compliant, and on schedule.

🧪 Field Application Specialist - Downstream Bioprocessing, Merck: Fancy turning DSP expertise into commercial impact? You'll support customers across the UK and Ireland from pre-sales to implementation, partnering with commercial and MSAT teams to spot growth opportunities and shape strategy.

RSVP 📆

🖥️ 08–12.06 | London Tech Week | London, UK: Europe’s premier tech gathering – drawing innovators, investors and enterprise leaders to hear from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Isomorphic Labs and the UK government on what’s next in tech.

🔬 10–12.06 | BioInference 2026 | St Andrews, UK: A three-day academic conference at Scotland’s oldest university, bringing together statisticians and biologists to tackle inference problems across epidemiology, genomics, spatial omics, and mathematical biology.

🤑 15.06 | Capital For Cures Liquidity Event – Royalty Financing | Amsterdam, Netherlands: This networking and panel event brings together investors, family offices and biotech innovators to discuss royalty financing, with a focus on how non-dilutive capital can fund breakthroughs while preserving long-term value.

🩺 15–18.06 | HLTH Europe 2026 | Amsterdam, Netherlands: Europe’s biggest healthcare innovation gathering hauls 5,000+ leaders to Amsterdam, with one in three at C-suite level, to thrash out the continent’s particular healthcare headaches and opportunities.

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 hypothesis generators,

This week, Cyclana Bio recruits its first endometriosis patients, Parabilis heads for the public markets with spiral-shaped peptides, DeepMind and Edison are each building an AI scientist, Daiichi lines up five pivotal ADC readouts, and Cowboy Space Corporation raises $275M to launch data centres into orbit.

Test your assumptions,

Dodo

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

Taking cell therapy inside the body

The next technological leap for genomic medicine uses the machinery inside our cells. What could that mean for patients?

Watch epsisode

Discover 🔍

🩸 Cyclana Bio granted Health Research Authority approval and recruits first patients for clinical observational study in endometriosis (NewsMedical): The Cambridge biotech has secured HRA and ethics approval for a 500-patient observational study, running across two NHS sites, using patient biopsies and donated menstrual fluid to build 3D in vitro models of endometriosis. Comparing tissue-level dynamics in healthy women against those with the condition, it aims to uncover the disease’s underlying biology, identify druggable targets, and develop patient stratification tools.

Our take: Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women, takes an average of eight years to diagnose, and has no cure – a research gap that reflects how routinely women's pain has been dismissed and deprioritised. The progressive disease can affect every stage of a woman's life, and yet the biological foundations needed to direct drug development have simply never been properly established. Cyclana’s tissue-first methodology is a rare attempt to fill that gap.

🧬 After raising $800M, Parabilis seeks an IPO to pursue ‘undruggable’ targets (BioPharma Dive): Founded as FogPharma in 2015, the Boston biotech enters the public markets with early clinical data in hand and a potential $2B Regeneron deal behind it. Its Helicons – spiral-shaped peptides designed to reach cancer-driving proteins beyond the grasp of conventional drugs – have shown early promise in desmoid tumours, with Phase 3 planning underway and ambitions stretching into more common cancers.

Our take: FOG-001 targets the β-catenin/TCF transcription factor interaction – one of the canonical undruggable problems in oncology. Transcription factors have no obvious binding pocket for small molecules, which is why the field has largely given up on them. Helicons mimic the alpha-helical structures proteins use to interact with each other, effectively picking the lock from the inside. If that holds beyond desmoid tumours, the addressable market is considerably larger than the IPO filing suggests.

🤖 Google DeepMind and Edison are building the AI Scientist (GEN): Two independently developed systems that automate the scientific method have landed in Nature – both built to generate, test, and refine hypotheses using AI. DeepMind’s Gemini-powered Co-Scientist generated hypotheses across drug repurposing, target discovery, and antimicrobial resistance, while Edison’s Robin went a step further – proposing a glaucoma drug for dry age-related macular degeneration and validating it in patient-derived cells. Edison is now deploying its newer system, Kosmos, with Incyte.

Our take: The promise is an AI capable of closing the loop between hypothesis and validation. Robin’s most interesting result is the identification of KL001 – a circadian clock modulator – as a candidate for macular degeneration: a connection entirely absent from existing literature. This suggests that the real value of AI may not be speed, but the ability to surface biological links that human researchers would never think to look for.

💸 Daiichi emerges from bruising 2 years with vision for cracking cancer’s big leagues (BioSpace): After a bruising run – a collapsed HER3 candidate, a narrowed Datroway approval, and $850M in manufacturing charges – Daiichi is betting five pivotal ADC readouts in its 2027 financial year will catapult it into the top tier of oncology. The targets range from small cell lung cancer to platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, each forecast at $2-6B in peak sales.

Our take: The ambition is understandable – Enhertu proved Daiichi can build a genuinely transformative ADC, and the pipeline has real candidates in small cell lung cancer and platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. The five pivotal readouts due in 2027 carry a $2-6B peak sales forecast apiece – optimistic figures from a company that has had to learn, rather painfully, the distance between projection and outcome.

And finally…

🛰️ How Robinhood cofounder Baiju Bhatt plans to put data centers in space (Forbes): Cowboy Space Corporation, founded by Robinhood cofounder Baiju Bhatt, has raised $275M at a $2B valuation to build orbital data centres – 20,000 of them, per an FCC filing. The pitch rests on constant solar power and housing 1MW of chips inside the rocket’s upper stage, rather than a separate satellite, with a first launch targeted for end-2028.

Our take: Google, SpaceX, Starcloud, Axiom, Lumen Orbit, and now Cowboy – orbital data centres went from concept to stampede in under two years, all fleeing the same terrestrial backlash over power and water that the AI boom keeps feeding. The central unsolved problem is heat: 1MW of chips generates enormous amounts of it, and in space there is no air to dissipate it. Cowboy’s answer: using the rocket fairing as a giant radiator. (Inter)stellar stuff!

Tune in 🎧

🧬 Can we reverse ageing? NYT Magazine’s Susan Dominus unpacks recent breakthroughs in cellular rejuvenation science, including who is funding the research, and what it might mean for the $2 trillion longevity market.

🍄 Can Hue Believe It? Gerit Tolborg’s Quest for Pure Colour at Chromologics: The Chromologics CEO explains how fermentation-derived fungal pigments could replace synthetic food dyes – covering economics, regulatory hurdles, and the case for decentralising supply chains.

🤖 Trump’s Tech Posse in China; Who’s Winning in Musk v. Altman?; Hantavirus Conspiracy Theories: WIRED’s Uncanny Valley team covers Trump’s Silicon Valley-heavy China trip, the OpenAI nonprofit lawsuit, and the conspiracy theories swirling around hantavirus.

Apply ✍️

🎯 Commercial Coordinator for Pharma & Biotech, Pharmaron: Fancy being the commercial glue between a CDMO site and its clients? You'll manage RFPs, track revenue milestones, handle invoicing, and keep customer relationships running smoothly from Cramlington.

🧪 GMP Production Scientist, eXmoor: Ready to get hands-on with cell and gene therapies in the cleanroom? You'll carry out GMP manufacture of clinical-grade ATMPs, support tech transfer and scale-up to 200L, and keep production documentation and environments audit-ready.

📊 Senior Data Manager, Transition Bio: Got a talent for bringing order to messy scientific data? You'll own the Dotmatics platform, manage ADMET and DMPK datasets from CROs, and build the data infrastructure that keeps a multidisciplinary discovery team moving.

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🦾 27–28.05 | Digi-Tech Pharma & AI 2026 | London, UK: Pharma leaders and digital innovators converge on Kensington to chew over AI in drug discovery, real-world evidence, quantum computing, and the regulatory tangles that inevitably trail digital transformation.

🖥️ 08–12.06 | London Tech Week | London, UK: Europe's premier tech gathering – drawing innovators, investors and enterprise leaders to hear from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Isomorphic Labs and the UK government on what's next in tech.

🔬 10–12.06 | BioInference 2026 | St Andrews, UK: A three-day academic conference at Scotland’s oldest university, bringing together statisticians and biologists to tackle inference problems across epidemiology, genomics, spatial omics, and mathematical biology.

🩺 15–18.06 | HLTH Europe 2026 | Amsterdam, Netherlands: Europe’s biggest healthcare innovation gathering hauls 5,000+ leaders to Amsterdam, with one in three at C-suite level, to thrash out the continent’s healthcare headaches and opportunities.

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 seafarers,

This week has been anything but calm waters: Isomorphic Labs is going full steam ahead on one of the largest funding rounds in biotech history, Roche dropped a quarter‑billion dollar bounty on an AI pathology deal, a Bristol-based biotech is making waves toward a potential hantavirus vaccine, Kyverna is preparing to drop anchor with one of the first CAR-T therapies for autoimmune disease, and jellyfish are emerging as a surprisingly sustainable source of collagen.

Mind the tentacles!

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Treating a new realm of diseases

Beyond traditional limits: explore the drug delivery technology opening new doors in genomic medicine.

Watch episode

Discover 🔍

💰 AI-fuelled Isomorphic bags $2.1B, the second largest biotech round ever (BioSpace): Alphabet’s AI-driven biotech has hauled in one of the biggest biotech rounds in history, despite having no disclosed molecules and nothing in the clinic. In a market where investors are fleeing early-stage risk and piling into late-stage assets, Isomorphic is a rather peculiar outlier. Rather than focusing on one target, the company plans to build a broader pipeline, particularly across oncology and immunology.

Our take: Isomorphic is being valued as a multi-programme AI operating system for drug discovery, rather than a pipeline of discrete assets. It has to be said, traditional biotech models – where capital is tied to specific indications and milestones – look rather old-fashioned by comparison. Platform companies spawning dozens of programmes across partners will compress valuation multiples for single-asset peers. The bar for non-platform biotechs just got considerably higher.

🤑 Roche acquires PathAI for $750m upfront to advance AI-powered digital pathology (BioXconomy): Roche is taking its long-standing partnership with PathAI to a rather logical conclusion, hauling the AI pathology specialist in-house in a deal worth $750M, with up to $300M in milestones. The deal tucks PathAI neatly into Roche’s diagnostics division. At the heart of the deal is PathAI’s AI-powered Image Management System, designed to streamline lab workflows and deliver faster, more accurate diagnoses from digital tissue samples.

Our take: With this move, Roche is getting ahead of a scenario where a rival pharma or diagnostics giant secures a scalable computational pathology backbone first. AI-assisted pathology is becoming as routine as sequencing or imaging – whoever controls the underlying software stack gains outsized influence over how cancer trials are designed, how biomarkers are validated, and how “digital” pathology gets defined in everyday clinical practice.

💉 Bristol biotech firm makes strides in developing a vaccine for hantavirus (Bristol 24/7): EnsiliTech is developing an mRNA-LNP vaccine candidate for hantavirus, following the recent outbreak aboard the MV Hondius that claimed three lives. Backed by the Small Business Research Initiative, the University of Bath spinout has produced a candidate showing rather promising results in animal testing. The team is now seeking additional funding to continue preclinical development and move towards IND approval.

Our take: Hantavirus sits in a rather awkward spot commercially: it’s lethal enough to matter, but outbreaks are scattered across regions that don’t exactly scream high-margin markets. That leaves public funding and partnerships doing the heavy lifting, rather than classic pharma pull, with EnsiliTech’s progress contingent on whether enough institutions remain willing to bankroll neglected infectious-disease innovation as the headlines move on.

💊 Kyverna begins rolling submission for autoimmune CAR-T as FDA requests more natural history analysis (Fierce Pharma): Kyverna is inching toward a landmark FDA approval for miv-cel, which could become the first autoimmune CAR-T to reach the market. The company has filed a rolling Biologics License Application after winning FDA backing for the notion that its single-arm KYSA-8 trial can support an application for stiff person syndrome, alongside additional analysis from a 153-patient natural history study.

Our take: After the FDA rejected uniQure’s Huntington’s gene therapy on natural history grounds, the same playbook looked rather shakier for cell and gene therapies. Kyverna securing FDA alignment on that design suggests the agency hasn’t entirely closed the door. If the FDA approves, small, high-need autoimmune indications could become proving grounds for cell therapies that would otherwise struggle to launch in broader, messier patient populations.

And finally…

🪼 How jellyfish bycatch could be valuable collagen source for cosmetics and biotech (Frontiers): Marine scientists Dr Ainara Ballesteros and PhD student Raquel Torres are turning a rather slimy ocean nuisance into biotech feedstock. Jellyfish bycatch from small-scale Spanish fisheries can be transformed into rather impressive collagen – rivalling material from carefully collected specimens. Their work blends fieldwork alongside fishers with lab-bench science, showing that what’s routinely tipped overboard could become a sustainable source of marine collagen for cosmetics, biomedicine, and regenerative medicine.

Our take: Jellyfish bycatch has clear promise on paper as a collagen feedstock, but small-scale fleets lack the onboard kit to turn nuisance into commodity. Fleets will require dedicated handling, chilling, and sorting, which means investing in the entire value chain from deck to lab. Coastal institutions would also need to reconfigure their facilities to treat jellyfish as proper marine-biotech feedstock rather than waste.

Tune in 🎧

🧠 Acadia CEO Catherine Owen Adams on neurodegeneration, AI and building biotech vision: From UK pharmacist to biotech CEO, Catherine Owen Adams shares how storytelling shapes leadership across commercialisation, investor engagement, and enterprise vision.

🦠 Building a new antibody discovery platform with Infinimmune’s Wyatt McDonnell, PhD: Infinimmune’s CEO unpacks how single-cell biology and computation are reshaping antibody discovery – and how that approach landed them a Merck collaboration worth up to $838M.

🤖 AI and the future of healthcare: Dr. Emilia Javorsky explores AI’s realistic potential in cancer research and healthcare, examining the role of high-quality data, patient-level individualisation, and the systemic reforms needed to unlock meaningful impact.

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🥼 Account Manager Pharma, bioMérieux: Interested in bridging science and commercial strategy? You’ll drive sales and marketing across the South of England, combining scientific expertise in advanced therapies with business acumen.

🤝 Meetings Centre of Excellence Manager, GSK: Passionate about high-impact HCP engagement? You’ll lead the UK strategy for healthcare professional meetings and external events, partnering cross-functionally to deliver compliant, customer-centric solutions.

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🔬 19–21.05 | Bio-IT World Conference & Expo | Boston, USA: Twenty-five years in, Bio-IT World remains an event where biopharma, clinical research, and tech genuinely converge – and with this year's focus on informatics, data analytics, and AI-driven tools, the timing could hardly be better.

🧪 22–23.05 | PDA Applied Bioprocess Solutions Forum 2026 | Milan, Italy: This highly interactive, community-shaped forum focuses on the cross-industry bioprocessing challenges that don’t have easy answers – from development and manufacturing, to quality and regulatory compliance.

🧑‍⚕️ 01.06 | HealthTech Integrates 2026 | London, UK: This one‑day conference brings together HealthTech companies (technology, diagnostics, devices), clinicians, regulators and investors to wrestle with the gap between promising technology and real-world 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 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,

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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.

Apply ✍️

🔎 Quality Oversight and Compliance Director, Pfizer: Got an eye for regulations? You’ll develop quality plans, drive inspection readiness, investigate process deviations, and keep pan-regulatory compliance shipshape across manufacturing, submissions, and clinical functions globally.

🔬 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.

RSVP 📆

🦠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.