#78 - Sleep prophecies, clinical conjuring, and corporate clairvoyance

The coffee break biotech roundup, by SomX.

Hello, my fellow mind readers…

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

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

Dodo

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Discover 🔍

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And finally…

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

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

Tune in 🎧

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

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

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

Apply ✍️

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

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

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

RSVP 📆

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

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

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

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