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)
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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?
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🧑🎤 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.
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🧫 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.
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