On September 7, 2023 – Myricx Bio (‘Myricx’), a UK biotech company focusing on the discovery and development of a completely novel class of selective cytotoxic payloads for antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), reported an antibody license agreement with Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co., Ltd (‘Biocytogen’, HKEX: 02315), a global biotech company focusing on the discovery of novel antibody therapeutics (Press release, MyricxBio, SEP 7, 2023, View Source [SID1234635233]).

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The agreement will enable Myricx to develop and commercialize ADCs based on an antibody developed using Biocytogen’s proprietary RenMice platform and will expand Myricx’s ADC pipeline of proprietary monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against important cancer targets to which it conjugates its first-in-class selective cytotoxic payloads based on potent inhibitors of N-MyristoylTransferase (NMT), a completely novel concept in the ADC space.

NMT is an enzyme that adds a specific lipid modification to a number of protein targets key to cancer cell survival. Myricx is developing a pipeline of ADCs to address serious unmet needs in oncology based on its NMT inhibitor (NMTi) payload chemistry platform and has demonstrated excellent preclinical efficacy and safety across multiple solid tumour associated antigens and cancer cell types.

Under the terms of the agreement, Myricx will provide its proprietary linker and NMTi payload and Biocytogen will conjugate them with its RenMice-derived fully human antibody to make ADCs. Biocytogen will carry out feasibility tests for these ADCs as CRO services, and upon option exercise, Myricx will be responsible for further development and commercialization. Biocytogen will receive an upfront payment and subject to exercise, Biocytogen will be eligible to receive development and commercialisation milestone payments, as well as single-digit royalties on net sales.

Myricx CEO Dr Robin Carr said: "We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Biocytogen with ground-breaking technology to develop novel antibodies for use in drug development. We believe that the combination of its antibody with our novel NMTi-based selective cytotoxic payloads will enable us to develop best-in-class ADCs to meet significant clinical needs in oncology. NMT inhibitors represent a novel class of ADC payloads that can be exploited as targeted therapies in cancer. Based on our positive proof of concept data we believe that ADC-NMTi offer huge potential for selective cancer cell killing via its unique mechanism of action."

"Thanks to Myricx’ recognition of our antibody assets, preclinical discovery expertise and CMC capabilities," said by Dr. Yuelei Shen, President and CEO of Biocytogen. "Myricx is a leading expert in NMTi payloads, and we believe that the combination of both company’s strengths will result in ADC drugs with first-in-class and best-in-class potentials."

On September 7, 2023 Mariana Oncology Inc., a biotechnology company pioneering a new era of radiopharmaceutical innovation to treat cancers with high unmet need, reported the closing of an oversubscribed $175 million Series B financing co-led by Deep Track Capital and Forbion (Press release, Mariana Oncology, SEP 7, 2023, View Source [SID1234635016]). Founding investors Atlas Venture, Access Biotechnology and RA Capital Management are joined by additional new investors Nextech Invest, Surveyor Capital (a Citadel company) and Eli Lilly and Company. Proceeds from the financing will support the advancement of Mariana Oncology’s novel portfolio of precision, next-generation radiopharmaceuticals including its lead candidate, MC-339, as the company transitions into a clinical-stage organization.

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"The support of such a strong syndicate of new and existing investors is a testament to Mariana Oncology’s potential," said Simon Read, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mariana Oncology. "In just 18 months since our Series A, we’ve leveraged our deep expertise in peptide discovery and radiochemistry to advance a diversified portfolio of novel molecules. The proceeds from this financing support the advancement of our pipeline and the initial development of our lead candidate, MC-339, which we anticipate will enter the clinic in 2024 in small cell lung cancer, supported by our own GMP radiopharmaceutical manufacturing."

"Radiopharmaceuticals are now being recognized as a logistically viable treatment modality that have demonstrated safety and a high degree of efficacy. These therapies are transforming care for select cancers and are primed to do so across a broader set of indications," said Rebecca Luse of Deep Track Capital. "Mariana Oncology’s pipeline is innovative and differentiated from most existing radiopharmaceutical companies. We are compelled by the broader opportunity for radiopharmaceuticals beyond prostate cancer and look forward to supporting Mariana Oncology’s success along with their seasoned leadership team and strong syndicate."

"The promising nature of Mariana Oncology’s pipeline is particularly exciting when we look at the possible positive impact on patients," said Geert-Jan Mulder, M.D., Managing Partner of Forbion. "MC-339 has the potential to transform the treatment of small cell lung cancer with the targeted delivery of an actinium payload leveraging the advantages of peptides for enhanced tumoral distribution. We look forward to Mariana Oncology’s evolution into a clinical-stage company with the potential to efficiently deliver an effective new standard of care to patients in the future."

In conjunction with this financing, Rebecca Luse from Deep Track Capital and Geert-Jan Mulder, M.D., from Forbion will join the Board of Directors.

On September 7, 2023 Noetik, an AI drug discovery company leveraging machine learning and proprietary human data to develop precision therapeutics in immuno-oncology, reported that it closed an oversubscribed $14M seed financing round led by DCVC, with participation from Zetta Venture Partners, 11.2 Capital, Catalio Capital Management, Epic Ventures, Intermountain Ventures, North South Ventures, Chau Khuong and CJNV BioVentures, Enveda Founder and CEO, Viswa Colluru and Hummingbird Nomads Fund, and Recursion CEO & CFO, Chris Gibson and Michael Secora (Press release, Noetik AI, SEP 7, 2023, View Source [SID1234635015]).

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Noetik has built an industry-defining multimodal tissue profiling platform that combines self-supervised learning with spatial biology to tackle fundamental problems in cancer immunology. In less than 12 months of operations Noetik has generated hundreds of terabytes of human data across a data stack that includes genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics to enable the development of foundation models for cell and tissue biology.

The funding will support Noetik’s significant internal data generation efforts and the continued development of transformer-based machine learning methods. From these data, the company aims to rapidly initiate target and therapeutics discovery. The funding will also be used to expand Noetik’s team in machine learning, computational biology, and cancer immunology.

"The microscope enabled a view of nature at the cellular level, now advanced AI methods provide us with a view of nature at the systems level. We can integrate molecular, cellular, and tissue information to discover novel therapeutic targets and study patients’ response to immunotherapies. Science has tended to remove complexity and simplify problems for human understanding, but now using modern machine learning we embrace natural complexity to discover more relevant representations of biology," said Ron Alfa, M.D., Ph.D., CEO & Co-Founder, Noetik. "We are here to make cancer drugs. Our commitment to patients is to discover better cancer therapeutics that have a higher probability of clinical success, using the most advanced computational tools."

"Technology will have the greatest impact on therapeutics by enabling better prediction of clinical success of new oncology therapies. The biggest bottleneck is clinical failure, with an ever-growing discovery funnel. Using machine learning, Noetik can discover the circuit diagram of tumor biology to unlock the next generation of precision oncology for end-to-end therapeutics discovery," said James Hardiman, General Partner, DCVC.

"The first generation of AI drug discovery was built on supervised learning which relies on human labels that are difficult to scale and limited by existing knowledge. Recent advances in self-supervision allow AI to learn directly from data and build internal representations of biology untethered to existing models of disease. This creates an opportunity to rethink the role of AI in drug development and build new platforms that use foundation models to encode and extract insights from machine-learned biology. We are excited to work with Noetik to apply these ideas to oncology and develop the next-generation of precision therapies," said Dylan Reid, Partner, Zetta Venture Partners.

Noetik’s founding leadership team includes Lacey Padron, Ph.D., Chief Technical Officer, who was previously VP Informatics at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. At the Parker Institute, Padron focused on using integrated multiomic data analysis to uncover biomarkers, mechanisms of action, and novel therapies from cancer immunotherapy patient data. She also led the development of a best-in-class data platform to store, integrate, and analyze data from 20+ molecular data types with detailed clinical outcomes and annotation.

"We founded Noetik not only to conduct impactful science, but to bring together some of the most talented people in the industry to build the ML-enabled therapeutics company of the future. One of the most challenging aspects of bringing together biology and machine learning is building exceptional interdisciplinary teams," said Jacob Rinaldi, Ph.D., CSO & Co-Founder, Noetik. "We’re recruiting a world-class, deeply technical team that have built in this space and are passionate to work on solving hard problems to make an impact for patients."

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On September 7, 2023 Natera, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTRA), a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, reported the pricing of its underwritten public offering of 4,550,000 shares of its common stock at a price to the public of $55.00 per share (Press release, Natera, SEP 7, 2023, View Source [SID1234635013]). Closing of the offering is expected to occur on September 11, 2023, subject to customary closing conditions. In addition, Natera has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 682,500 shares of its common stock at the public offering price less the underwriting discounts and commissions.

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Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, TD Cowen and Piper Sandler are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Baird is acting as lead manager for the offering. Raymond James and Craig-Hallum are acting as co-managers for the offering.

The securities described above are being offered pursuant to an automatically effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3 that was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on September 6, 2023, including a preliminary prospectus. Copies of the preliminary prospectus and, when available, final prospectus may be obtained by contacting Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014; Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, 200 West Street, New York, NY 10282, Attention: Prospectus Department, by telephone at (866) 471-2526 or by emailing [email protected]; Cowen and Company, LLC, 599 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022, by email at [email protected] or by telephone at (833) 297-2926; or Piper Sandler & Co., Attention: Prospectus Department, 800 Nicollet Mall, J12S03, Minneapolis, MN 55402, by telephone at (800) 333-6000, or by email at [email protected].

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

On September 7, 2023 Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals (Beijing) Co., Ltd. ("Biocytogen", HKEX: 02315), a global biotech company focusing on the discovery of novel antibody therapeutics, reported an antibody evaluation, option and license agreement with Myricx Bio (‘Myricx’), a UK biotech company focusing on the discovery and development of a completely novel class of selective cytotoxic payloads for antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) (Press release, Biocytogen, SEP 7, 2023, View Source [SID1234635012]).

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Under the terms of the agreement, Myricx will provide its proprietary linker and payload and Biocytogen will conjugate them with its RenMice-derived fully human antibodies to make ADCs. Biocytogen will carry out feasibility tests for these ADCs as CRO services, and upon option exercise, Myricx will be responsible for further development and commercialization. Biocytogen will receive an upfront payment and, subject to exercise Biocytogen will be eligible to receive ongoing development and commercialisation milestone payments, as well as single-digit royalties on net sales.

In this project, the antibodies developed by Biocytogen were not only screened by its high specificity, cross-species reactivity, high affinity and good developabilities, but also by its high internalization activity specifically for ADC uses.

NMT is an enzyme that adds a specific lipid modification to a number of protein targets key to cancer cell survival. Myricx is developing a pipeline of ADCs to address serious unmet needs in oncology based on its NMT inhibitor (NMTi) payload chemistry platform and has demonstrated excellent preclinical efficacy and safety across multiple solid tumour associated antigens and cancer cell types.

"Thanks to Myricx recognition of our antibody assets, preclinical discovery expertise and CMC capabilities," said by Dr. Yuelei Shen, President and CEO of Biocytogen. "Myricx is a leading expert in NMTi payloads and we believe that the combination of both companies’ strengths will result in ADC drugs with first-in-class and best-in-class potential."

Myricx CEO Dr Robin Carr said: "We are delighted to have reached this agreement with Biocytogen with ground-breaking technology to develop novel antibodies for use in drug development. We believe that the combination of its antibody with our novel NMTi-based selective cytotoxic payloads will enable us to develop best-in-class ADCs to meet significant clinical needs in oncology. NMT inhibitors represent a novel class of ADC payloads that can be exploited as targeted therapies in cancer. Based on our positive proof of concept data we believe that ADC-NMTi offers huge potential for selective cancer cell killing via its unique mechanism of action."