biotech
RIP Sangamo, 1995 to 2026
From STAT's Jason Mast: Sangamo Therapeutics, a biotech that pioneered gene-editing technologies years before it was cool, declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday. It was 31 years old.
Originally formed in 1995 to commercialize a class of tiny proteins called zinc fingers that bind to DNA, Sangamo spearheaded the first human gene-editing trial in 2009 and the first in vivo gene editing trial in 2017. But those trials produced lackluster data and the advent of CRISPR in 2012 brought a horde of competitors. Many of its efforts — including treatments for sickle cell and hemophilia — either floundered or arrived too late.
In the last couple years, the company had shown promising results with a treatment for the rare lysosomal disorder Fabry disease and with a fleet of new viruses that might better usher genes into patients’ cells. But the programs evidently did not garner enough interest in time to keep the lights on.
Although bankruptcy does not necessarily mean the end of a company, Sangamo left little doubt about its future. In a press release, it said it planned to auction “substantially all” of its assets. Two companies, Eli Lilly and Astellas, have already made offers: Astellas for the Fabry program; and Lilly for its zinc fingers and early-stage technology, including the next-generation viruses and a potential treatment for the devastating brain condition prion disease.
Gene and cell therapies for hemophilia, for preventing organ transplant rejection, and for chronic pain are still up for grabs — if anyone is in the market.
Manufacturing
Onshoring is expected to persist beyond Trump's term
From STAT's Daniel Payne at the BIO conference: Some of President Trump’s pharmaceutical agenda may expire at the end of his administration, but momentum toward onshoring drug manufacturing is likely to persist — at least that’s how leaders at Fujifilm see it.
Pharmaceutical companies hiring Fujifilm to make their products in the U.S. are sometimes signing decade-long agreements, Toshi Iida, a company vice president who oversees its life sciences work, told STAT on the floor of BIO — suggesting the onshoring movement is here to stay.
Moving drug manufacturing plants closer to the patients who are ultimately treated with those therapies can make the supply chain more resilient and faster, Iida said, while also removing potential geopolitical risks inherent to business on a global scale. But it’s a complicated endeavor that can’t be easily undone, he noted.
And more could be on the way. Crystal Fry-Vanuch, Fujifilm’s head of government affairs and BIO board member, told STAT she talks with lawmakers in Congress about how they may continue to replicate their manufacturing success in North Carolina elsewhere in the U.S.
“I don't think that that policy discussion is going to just go away with the change of administrations,” she said.
AI
Behind Lilly and Chai’s partnership
From STAT’s Brittany Trang at the BIO conference: At the conference, I caught up with both Eli Lilly’s Aliza Apple, who heads up Lilly’s recently launched TuneLabs initiative, and Joshua Meier, CEO of buzzy AI protein design startup Chai Discovery. In separate interviews, they told the same story: Lilly is pretty enamored with Chai’s abilities.
Lilly representatives “showed up at our office like a week after the Chai-2 [model] launch announcement, and they were like, ‘How do we start working together?’” said Meier.
After Lilly tested Chai’s designs in its wet lab and inked a discovery partnership earlier this year, Apple started talking with Chai about whether Lilly’s due diligence could translate into a quality offering for the small biotechs utilizing Lilly TuneLabs.
“One of the pieces of feedback we’ve been hearing from the ecosystem is, ‘Who has the time to evaluate and essentially validate all of those models? I really just want to use what’s best [and] know I can trust it,” said Apple. She said the program’s goal is to offer small biotechs “the best-in-class models,” whether from Lilly or a third party, and that the limited free-trial Chai-3 model in TuneLabs is the first of hopefully multiple third-party partnerships.
Even though TuneLabs could potentially be a free competitor to Chai’s product, Apple and Meier both separately said that TuneLabs is acting as a distribution channel to help Chai make inroads with biotechs that are clamoring for its services. Business development and contracting are hurdles for the company’s growth — “We are still a young company and we have limited resources,” said Meier.
