#58 - Choc, stock and two smoking trials

The coffee break biotech roundup, by SomX.

Listen to this one,

This week’s roundup bets on some sweet deals… Mars is teaming up to gene-edit the future of chocolate, Pfizer’s feeling smug with a profit forecast boost, a German biotech are sweetening the odds in antidepressant matchmaking, Praxis boasts a Phase 2 epilepsy win, and the EU’s asking for your input for the biotech megabudget.

It's been emotional,

Big Dodo

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

Discover 🔍

🍫 Candy giant Mars partners with biotech firm to gene-edit cocoa supply (CNBC): Mars and Pairwise aim to CRISPR their way out of a potential chocolate crisis. The partnership focuses on creating cacao that can handle disease, heat, and other climate curveballs threatening global chocolate supplies. Traditional breeding takes forever with cacao's sluggish growth cycles, so gene editing offers a much faster route to hardier plants. Mars also dropped news of a separate $2B investment in US manufacturing through 2026.

Our take: Better than fighting over the last chocolate bar! Cacao farming sits in some of the world's most climate-vulnerable regions, and traditional breeding is too slow for a crop facing urgent threats. The partnership will give Mars access to Pairwise’s Fulcrum platform, and with it a suite of precision tools to fast-track resilience traits that could protect a $100B industry. Sure, there'll be GM crop pushback, but when your business model depends on cocoa, you have to be pragmatic.

💰Pfizer shares rise 3% after upping profit forecast for 2025 (Pharmaceutical Technology): Pfizer’s Q2 revenues landed at a hefty $14.7B (up 10% year-on-year), with adjusted earnings of $0.78 per share easily beating what analysts were expecting. The real stars of the show were Vyndaqel and Eliquis, which helped cushion the blow from a chunky $1.35B licensing charge. Still, generic competition and looming US tariffs aren't exactly making life easier for the pharma giant.

Our take: Someone's doing their homework! While Ibrance faces generic heat and COVID revenues cool off, Pfizer's still wringing profit from existing assets. Vyndaqel and Eliquis are doing the heavy lifting – both treat conditions where patients can't easily switch therapy. When blockbusters go generic, the smart move is to pivot to more niche therapies. The margin bump from tighter R&D spend? Great for today, potentially brutal for tomorrow's pipeline.

🧬 Biotech hails trial results for antidepressant paired with genetic test (Financial Times): German biotech HMNC Brain Health just shared some promising results for BH-200, which they’ve paired with a genetic test to predict response. The 338-patient trial split folks based on their genetic profiles, and while everyone saw some improvement, a solid 27% hit the jackpot with significantly better outcomes. The company's now eyeing Phase 3 trials and working on swapping that pesky blood draw for a much friendlier home saliva test.

Our take: Plot twist, BH-200 isn't actually new – it's a rescued asset getting another chance through genetic matchmaking. Using stress hormone genetics to predict who'll respond best is pretty clever, especially in a field where "try this and see what happens" has been the standard for too long. This could be psychiatry's moment for precision medicine, catching up to oncology and matching patients to treatments based on biology.

✂️ Praxis’ epilepsy drug cut seizure frequency in mid-stage trial (Endpoints): Praxis Precision Medicines' sodium channel blocker vormatrigine just delivered some solid Phase 2 results. The RADIANT study tracked 37 patients with focal onset seizures over eight weeks, notching up a median 56.3% drop in seizure frequency. Even better, 22% of patients went completely seizure-free in the final month. What's particularly neat is that vormatrigine doesn't need the usual gradual dose increases that can make epilepsy drugs cumbersome.

Our take: No tedious dose ramping required! Vormatrigine's potential as both add-on and standalone therapy could be huge. If it can replace clunky multi-drug cocktails that patients currently juggle, we're looking at simpler treatment regimens. Praxis is testing Vormatrigine across diverse treatment backgrounds and now pursuing monotherapy trials – suggesting they're betting big on its versatility to change how epilepsy could be treated.

And finally…

💬 EU Biotech Act: Have your say! (European Biotechnology Magazine): The European Commission just opened the floodgates for feedback on its upcoming EU Biotech Act, with a 14-week consultation running until November 10th. Brussels is eyeing a potential budget reshuffle that could bump EU funding from €1.2 trillion to €2 trillion, pulling cash from existing programs to turbocharge high-tech sectors like biotech and AI. Everyone from companies to researchers to lobby groups gets a seat at the table to shape this thing.

Our take: Well, it's nice to be asked for once! We're looking at the EU's biggest capital shake-up since Horizon Europe launched, with a potential shuffling of €800B toward high-tech sectors. However, can Brussels untangle its notoriously fragmented biotech landscape, or will it become another layer of bureaucracy? Either way, early-stage companies have a genuine shot to influence how Europe defines "strategic technology". Don't sleep on this!

Tune in 🎧

🥩 Meatly's innovative cultivated meat is already delighting pets, are humans next?: CEO Owen Ensor explains how Meatly brought their first approved product to market in Europe, and why humans might be their next customer.

💫 Why Biotech Will Define the 21st Century: Investor and author Andrew Craig lays out why biotech is the new physics. From the lab to the stock exchange, this is a wide-ranging case for biology as destiny.

🍄 Investing in Psychedelic BioTech: As trials impress and capital floods in, VCs are getting serious about mental health’s next frontier. This episode explores the data, the dollars, and the direction of travel.

Apply ✍️

🧠 Deep Learning Engineer - Biological Foundation Models, Umbilical Life: Can you teach transformers to speak biology? Help build the next generation of foundational models for drug discovery and design large-scale systems for single-cell and multi-omics data.

👩🏻‍💻 Research Fellow (Computational Genomics & AI), Queen's University Belfast: Know how to wrangle pangenomes with LLMs? Work on high-impact projects blending microbial genomics and artificial intelligence to shape tools with real-world scientific and strategic value.

🤝 Client Partner – Life Sciences (Pharma & Biotech Focus), Endava: Can you close deals without breaking a sweat? By managing senior relationships and lead strategic growth across pharma and biotech, you’ll turn client needs into long-term partnerships.

RSVP 📆

💂🏻‍♂️20–21.08 | 15th International Conference on Biotechnology | London UK: Researchers and industry leaders will explore breakthroughs ranging from genetic and tissue engineering, to nanobiotechnology and pharma innovation.

🥐 31–23.08 | 11th International Conference on Bioengineering and Biotechnology | Paris France: This hybrid gathering offers in-person and reduced-fee virtual attendance, enabling global bioengineers and biotechnologists to present, discuss and network.

👩🏻‍🔬11.08 & 18.08 | Laboratory Skills & Biotechnology Skills Bootcamp | Liverpool or Hull UK: A free, 10-day programme where participants gain hands-on experience with core techniques such as PCR, gel electrophoresis, microbiology, ELISA and western blotting, sharpening practical biotech skills.

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.