Atlas Venture Advisors, Inc.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--( BUSINESS WIRE )--Be Biopharma, Inc. (“Be Bio”), a clinical-stage company pioneering engineered B Cell Medicines (BCMs), today announced that Chief Executive Officer Joanne Smith-Farrell, Ph.D. will present at the 43 rd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference being held at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, CA on Wednesday, January 15, 2025, at 3:30 pm PT. About Engineered B Cell Medicines – A New Class of Cellular Medicines The B cell is a powerful cell that produces thousands of proteins per cell per second at constant levels, over decades. Precision genome editing can now be used to engineer B Cells that produce therapeutic proteins of interest, driving a new class of cellular medicines – Engineered B Cell Medicines (BCMs) – with the potential to be durable, allogeneic, redosable, titratable and administered without pre-conditioning. The promise of BCMs could transform therapeutic biologics with broad application — across diverse protein classes, patient populations and therapeutic areas. About Be Biopharma Be Biopharma (“Be Bio”) is clinical-stage company pioneering Engineered B Cell Medicines (BCMs) to dramatically improve the lives of patients who are living with Hemophilia B, other genetic diseases, cancer, and other serious conditions. With eyes locked on the patient, Be Bio’s team of purpose-driven scientists, technologists, manufacturing experts and business builders collaborates to create a bold new class of cell therapies. Be Bio was founded in October 2020, and is backed by ARCH Venture Partners, Atlas Venture, RA Capital Management, Alta Partners, Longwood Fund, Bristol Myers Squibb, Takeda Ventures, Seattle Children’s Research Institute and others. For more information, please visit us at Be.Bio and our LinkedIn page.

A landmark study hoping to find new treatments for ALS has notched two more failures, as experimental medicines from Denali Therapeutics and Calico Life Sciences proved no better than a placebo at slowing the nerve-destroying disease or keeping patients alive longer.Denali disclosed high-level results from the study Monday. After about six months, treatment with the companys drug didnt result in any significant changes in the severity of the disease, nor did it substantially help patients muscle strength or respiratory function.Denali plans to further examine the data and look at biological markers of the disease, including one, neurofilament light chain, thats become increasingly important to researchers focused on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The company expects to conduct those analyses later this year.Though the initial top-line clinical results of this trial were not what we hoped, the data collected is valuable in helping to understand the next stage of ALS research, said Merit Cudkowicz, director of the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital, in a statement.Cudkowicz and her team came up with and for the last several years have been running the Healey platform trial, an innovative experiment structured to quickly test a variety of potential ALS therapies. The trial has so far evaluated more than half a dozen drugs, but none have successfully hit its main goals.Alongside the Denali news, the Healey center announced a similar medicine from Calico and AbbVie had failed, too. Both Denalis and Calicos drugs are supposed to activate eIF2B, a complex molecule cells use to make proteins. Research indicates stress and disease inhibits this molecule, which in turn can exacerbate the accumulation of stress-related proteins like TDP-43.While helpful when functioning normally, TDP-43 can, under certain conditions, become a bad actor in nerve cells. It is tied to ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases, and has therefore attracted interest from a handful of brain-focused biotechnology companies. Just two months ago, a San Francisco-area startup launched with a drug designed to work around this TDP-43 problem. Named Trace Neuroscience, the startup came equipped with $101 million from a group of prominent life sciences investors that includes Third Rock Ventures, Atlas Venture, RA Capital Management and Alphabets venture capital arm, GV.Cudkowicz said the Healey team remains deeply committed to fully understanding the effects of Denalis drug and will further evaluate the data before determining next steps.Some Denali investors may not be willing to wait, however. Shares of the company, which had already dipped more than 6% while the stock market was open Monday, fell further in after-hours trading. Calico is a privately held subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet.This was always a low expectations, high-risk study for Denali,wrote Michael Yee, an analyst at the investment bank Jefferies, in a note to clients. The failure of AbbVie and Calicos therapy to also hit the same goals in its own study arm points to a difficulty with the drug class in a challenging disease.In its own statement, Calico pointed to an assessment of muscle strength that hinted at slower deterioration among those given the companys drug. Bill Cho, the companys head of clinical sciences, said the finding supports further investigation.Like many brain diseases, ALS has been exceptionally difficult to crack for even the worlds most powerful drug developers. Only a few medicines have received approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and their effects are considered modest. Patients still typically live just two to five years following a diagnosis.The list of approved therapies got shorter last spring, when Amylyx Pharmaceuticals voluntarily removed its once-promising medication Relyvrio from the market. Amylyx made that decision after a key study meant to confirm the Relyvrio was an effective ALS treatment instead found it no better than a placebo. '

Sofinnova Investments, one of the longest-standing biotech investment firms, has penciled in plans for a new $550 million fund, Endpoints News has learned. The Menlo Park, CA-based firm disclosed the plans in a Thursday night SEC filing . A spokesperson for the firm declined to comment on Friday. The new raise would join other large new funds from Flagship, Bain Capital Life Sciences , ARCH, Forbion , Dimension and Atlas Venture , among others this year. Leading Sofinnova are James Healy and Maha Katabi , both of whom have been on boards of multiple acquired biotechs in recent quarters. “The deal flow — it’s never been any better. Probably that’s a function of how public markets have corrected,” Katabi told Endpoints in February. “A lot more companies are interested in exploring more fully the availability of capital in private markets before going down the IPO path.” Sofinnova was on a roll with its most recent fund, called XI. That fund came in at $500 million , according to an SEC filing, about $150 million below its 2016 fund . The new fund is listed as fund XII. Multiple startups backed by fund XI went public via IPOs in the past two years, including RayzeBio, ArriVent , Rapport, and BioAge Labs. RayzeBio was quickly bought by Bristol Myers Squibb, and fellow portfolio company Aiolos Bio was also acquired by GSK. Sofinnova has backed ambitious projects and contributed to a bevy of large financings with XI. At least half a dozen companies from that fund raised megarounds this year. That includes BioAge, epilepsy and pain biotech Axonis , ADC startup OnCusp , cardiometabolic company Marea , in vivo CAR-T maker Capstan , Athena Countouriotis’ Avenzo and neuroscience biotech Seaport, which has raised two nine-figure financings this year. “If I look over our current funds, over the past two funds in particular or past five years, our average time to IPO is less than a year,” Healy told Endpoints in a September interview. “I would hope that Seaport would fit within our investment [strategy], and it would be outstanding if it could follow the trajectory that Karuna had. But of course, no guarantees.” He was on the board of schizophrenia drugmaker Karuna when BMS bought it for $14 billion. Many of the Karuna team is back together for their next bet on neuroscience at Seaport. The firm began in 1976 and has focused on biopharmaceuticals since 2007 . It had $3.7 billion in assets under management and committed capital as June 30. In August, it announced the addition of Maha Radhakrishnan as executive partner.