The front page of AI-driven biology
Thursday, October 15, 2026Thu, Oct 15
Updated 6:32 PM PT
Clinical readouts, approvals, and setbacks, financing, dealmaking, platform progress, and reported research across biotech and biopharma, including the companies building AI into biology.
Physicians and patient advocates raised alarm after Neurocrine Biosciences' Prader-Willi syndrome drug, Vykat XR, was linked to seven patient deaths and nearly 100 hospitalizations since its approval 18 months ago.
The therapeutic mRNA cancer vaccine BNT113 failed to show a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival when added to Merck's Keytruda in HPV16-positive head and neck cancer.
Nurix Therapeutics announced in its third-quarter earnings report that it is discontinuing clinical development of zelebrudomide, an oral BTK and cereblon neosubstrate degrader.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is directing $125 million toward building a distributed network to manufacture personalized RNA drugs.
Caribou Biosciences announced it is halting clinical development of its two allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies, conducting a substantial workforce reduction, and evaluating strategic alternatives.
The FDA cleared Hovilpri (pritelivir), an oral viral helicase-primase inhibitor, to treat refractory mucocutaneous herpes simplex virus infections in immunocompromised adults failing standard nucleoside therapies.
Mirum Pharmaceuticals reported that Livmarli met its primary endpoint in a Phase 3 study, significantly reducing severe pruritus in patients with rare liver disease.
Detailed Phase 3 data for Merck's diabetic macular edema candidate remigromig showed adverse events related to proliferative diabetic retinopathy in 6.7% and 6.1% of patients depending on the dose, compared to 0.9% for Lucentis.
Aspen Neuroscience has filed for an initial public offering to advance its autologous cell therapy, which transforms skin cells into dopamine-producing neurons for surgical implantation.
Partner Hansoh Pharma reported that obuprazine significantly cut schizophrenia symptoms compared to placebo across five doses in a Phase 2b trial of 363 adults in China.
The FDA will review Roche's intravitreal IL-6 inhibitor vamikibart for uveitic macular edema, setting an action date of July 2027.
More than $500 billion in global prescription sales are vulnerable to generic and biosimilar rivals between 2026 and 2032, according to Evaluate forecasting data reported by BioPharma Dive.
Google DeepMind and Adaptyv Bio published a study in Nature demonstrating SynthIDBio, a watermarking method that embeds identifiable origin tags into AI-generated protein sequences and structures.
Bristol Myers Squibb announced that both its oral LPA1 blocker admilparant in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and its targeted radiotherapy RYZ101 in neuroendocrine tumors met their primary endpoints in late-stage trials.
AstraZeneca attributed the failure of its Phase 3 HICKORY trial for efzimfotase alfa to an imbalanced adult subgroup.
TRex Bio priced its Nasdaq initial public offering at $14 per share, selling 8.33 million shares to fund its pipeline of therapies that activate regulatory T cells, or immune-suppressing Tregs.
GSK will invest more than $800 million to overhaul its R&D and manufacturing facilities in Upper Merion Township, Pennsylvania, according to a company announcement.
An analysis of 2,246 schoolchildren in Cameroon published in Nature Microbiology shows that people carrying the sickle cell trait harbor genetically distinct strains of Plasmodium falciparum during asymptomatic infections.
GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to access Chai Discovery's AI models for protein folding and design after validating generated antibody candidates across an internal panel of drug targets.
City Therapeutics set terms to raise up to $184.7 million in a Nasdaq initial public offering, yielding expected net proceeds of $158.3 million at the midpoint of its $17 to $19 price range, matching the $158 million target reported by Endpoints News.
Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for inventing optogenetics, a technology that uses light-sensitive proteins to control genetically modified neurons with laser light.
The FDA has approved Teva's Weltruza, an extended-release injectable suspension administered once monthly for patients with schizophrenia.
Alphabet spin-out Isomorphic Labs is in preliminary discussions to raise external capital at a valuation of at least $40 billion, according to reporting from Bloomberg.
Roche has entered a research collaboration with Chinese startup Defand Therapeutics to discover and develop molecular glue drugs for cancer and immune diseases.
Two companion papers in Science and Cell report using synthetic DNA recording platforms, including DNA Typewriter, to reconstruct cell lineage trees from a fertilized egg through late organogenesis in mice.
In the Phase 3 EXCALIBER-RRMM trial, patients receiving the oral cereblon E3 ligase modulator Zenbexus (iberdomide) combined with standard therapies reached a median progression-free survival of 42 months, compared to 20 months for standard DVd therapy.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health has funded three teams under its BioStabilization Systems program, committing up to $87 million over four years to eliminate cold-chain refrigeration for living cell products.
The computational drug design startup spun out of Google DeepMind is negotiating a fresh financing round that could value the company between $40 billion and $50 billion.
Viatris will pay $36.50 per share to purchase the pain-management specialist, funding the transaction primarily from excess cash.
Regulators cleared the oral small-molecule HER2 kinase inhibitor for first-line maintenance in advanced HER2-positive breast cancer in combination with antibody therapies.