The front page of AI-driven biology
Thursday, October 15, 2026Thu, Oct 15
Updated 11:02 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.
Novo Nordisk has agreed to a collaboration worth up to $1.4 billion with Orbis Medicines to develop oral macrocyclic peptides for cardiometabolic diseases.
Electra completed a $350 million initial public offering on Nasdaq to fund clinical development of its antibody pipeline, joining a wave of eleven biotech listings this year that have each raised at least $300 million.
High glucose levels induce direct tissue-level inflammation and epithelial cell detachment in human stem cell-derived kidney organoids, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Miami.
The FDA approved Fayuvi, an adeno-associated virus gene therapy given into a vein to treat children with mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIA, also known as Sanfilippo syndrome type A. The one-time therapy uses an AAV9 viral vector to deliver a functional copy of the SGSH gene, allowing patients to produce sulfamidase and break down toxic accumulations of heparan sulfate in the brain.
Goa Therapeutics launched with $15.5 million in funding from individual industry leaders and filed for an initial public offering to raise up to $75 million.
The FDA granted priority review approval to Bayer's Kerendia, an oral non-steroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist, to slow disease progression in adults with chronic kidney disease linked to Type 1 diabetes.
A Stanford team published an architecture in Science that coordinates specialized computational agents under a virtual chief scientific officer to analyze cross-disciplinary genomic, molecular, and clinical data.
A multiomics study published in Cell Reports Medicine by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai mapped distinct tumor biology across developmental stages and sex in high-grade brain cancer.
An analysis of 23andMe genetic data across 3.37 million people published in Science found that the rare inherited T790M mutation in the EGFR gene increases lung cancer risk 62-fold in non-smokers.
Cardiometabolic biotech Marea Therapeutics will acquire Nasdaq-listed Lisata Therapeutics in an all-stock reverse merger alongside a $225 million private placement from RA Capital Management, Forbion, Third Rock Ventures, and Sofinnova Investments.
North Immunology will list on Nasdaq under ticker NRTX by merging with Aethlon Medical alongside a $180 million private placement backed by Bain Capital Life Sciences, Janus Henderson Investors, and Deep Track Capital.
OrbiMed and Qiming Venture Partners USA co-led the $25 million round, joined by Innovation Endeavors, Benchstrength, Fusion Fund, and Lumira Ventures.
SK Biopharmaceuticals will pay 1ST Biotherapeutics $1.8 million upfront, with total milestone potential bringing the headline deal value to $314.8 million, or roughly $315 million, for 1ST-104, an oral dual inhibitor of LRRK2 and c-Abl.
Longeveron is reviewing strategic options after its investigational cell therapy laromestrocel failed to beat control surgery in a Phase 2b trial of 40 infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
Novo Nordisk has partnered with AI startup Anthropic to deploy its Claude model across early drug discovery and research operations.
Phase 3 clinical trial results demonstrate that Vera Therapeutics' dual BAFF and APRIL inhibitor atacicept, branded as Trutakna, successfully preserved kidney function in patients with IgA nephropathy.
GenomeFrontier Therapeutics will adapt the production of GF-CART01, an autologous virus-free CAR T-cell therapy, to run on Cellares' automated Cell Shuttle system.
Skyhawk Therapeutics reported that patients receiving SKY-0515 showed statistically significant clinical improvements over a control group from nine months through 15 months of treatment in an ongoing mid-stage trial.
Novo Nordisk plans to deploy Anthropic's Claude Science model to assist with scientific reasoning across drug research and development and agentic software tasks.
Novartis triggered its acquisition option 14 months after entering an initial evaluation agreement, gaining control of technology engineered to transport large-molecule therapies across the blood-brain barrier.
Forbion led the Series C financing alongside TPG Life Sciences Innovations and Sectoral Asset Management to fund a 120-patient trial of linsitinib.
Novartis halted development of VHB937 in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis after the TREM2 stabilizer and activator missed both primary and secondary endpoints in a 251-patient Phase 2 trial against placebo.
Chinese internet company ByteDance completed a $290 million funding round for its AI-driven drug discovery division following its spin-out as an independent company.
Cell therapy bioprocessing specialist Ori Biotech has agreed to a $120 million contract to implement its automated production platform for an undisclosed commercial-stage cell therapy.
Researchers at Imperial College London deployed three computational screening models across 6,747 small molecules to identify approved drugs that could be repurposed against the respiratory bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae.
OpenAI has officially backed a package of bipartisan United States congressional legislation aimed at preventing artificial intelligence systems from assisting in the development of biological weapons.
The Mayo Clinic and Thermo Fisher Scientific have launched Precure LLC, a joint venture built to assemble large-scale datasets combining genomic, proteomic, and longitudinal clinical records.
BioMarin has halted development of its once-daily injected bone-growth peptide, vosoritide, for children with Noonan syndrome, attributing the decision to study feasibility and a changing commercial landscape rather than safety or efficacy.
Obvious Ventures led a $20 million Series A funding round for Mithrl, with backing from Headline, AGI House, and biopharma executives, to advance its biomedical world model and AI orchestration platform.
The OpenAI Foundation has launched a $125 million initiative called Public Data for Health to fund open, standardized scientific and biomedical datasets for machine-learning research.