Tim Lu takes Senti and its gene circuit tech public in $296M deal riding on Omid Farokhzad’s SPAC

Tim Lu via TED Talks (TED Conferences)

Omid Farokhzad didn’t have to trav­el far to find a pri­vate biotech he want­ed to take pub­lic with his $200 mil­lion blank-check com­pa­ny.

Sen­ti Bio — the syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy play launched and now helmed by MIT whiz Tim Lu — will be merg­ing with Farokhzad’s Dy­nam­ics Spe­cial Pur­pose Corp., the com­pa­nies an­nounced Tues­day morn­ing, in a deal set to de­liv­er $296 mil­lion in gross pro­ceeds.

Us­ing a gene cir­cuit tech­nol­o­gy plat­form out of Lu’s lab, Sen­ti promis­es to pro­gram ‘sense-com­pute-re­spond’ ca­pa­bil­i­ties in­to cell and gene ther­a­pies.

The en­gi­neer­ing method promis­es to en­hance ef­fi­ca­cy, speci­fici­ty and dura­bil­i­ty — all key qual­i­ties any cell and gene ther­a­py de­vel­op­er is look­ing for.

Blue­Rock Ther­a­peu­tics, the Bay­er sub­sidiary, was one of them. Ear­li­er this year (in fact the day af­ter Farokhzad com­plet­ed the IPO for his SPAC) Blue­Rock signed on to de­ploy the tech­nol­o­gy in de­vel­op­ing new cell ther­a­pies for re­gen­er­a­tive use.

The merg­er marks a hefty en­dorse­ment from a group deeply con­nect­ed in the biotech field. The crew at Dy­nam­ics Spe­cial Pur­pose Corp in­cludes CFO Mark Afrasi­abi, who had co-head­ed the in­vest­ment com­mit­tee at Sil­ver Rock Fi­nan­cial, CBO Rowan Chap­man out of J&J In­no­va­tion and three in­de­pen­dent board mem­bers: David Ep­stein, the for­mer No­var­tis phar­ma chief now at Flag­ship, for­mer Il­lu­mi­na CEO Jay Flat­ley and se­nior man­ag­ing part­ner of the Soft­Bank Vi­sion Fund, Deep Nishar.

Farokhzad, the CEO of Seer, long­time Har­vard aca­d­e­m­ic and se­r­i­al en­tre­pre­neur, praised Sen­ti’s foun­da­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy for hav­ing ‘game-chang­ing im­pli­ca­tions for treat­ing a va­ri­ety of can­cers, as well as po­ten­tial ap­pli­ca­tions be­yond on­col­o­gy.’

On top of the cash re­serves in­side Dy­nam­ics, ex­ist­ing SPAC in­vestors are chim­ing in to pro­vide $86 mil­lion — in­clud­ing ARK In­vest­ment Man­age­ment, funds and ac­counts man­aged by Coun­ter­point Glob­al (Mor­gan Stan­ley In­vest­ment Man­age­ment), In­vus and T. Rowe Price funds. Oth­ers, in­clud­ing 8VC, Am­gen Ven­tures, Life­Force Cap­i­tal, NEA, Park­er In­sti­tute for Can­cer Im­munother­a­py, are help­ing push the PIPE fi­nanc­ing to $153 mil­lion.

‘With re­cent ad­vances in syn­thet­ic bi­ol­o­gy, com­pu­ta­tion, and mas­sive bi­o­log­i­cal da­ta gen­er­a­tion, I be­lieve that we have a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gi­neer in­tel­li­gent cell and gene ther­a­pies that di­rect­ly tack­le the het­ero­gene­ity and dy­nam­ic na­ture of dis­ease, which have the po­ten­tial to fun­da­men­tal­ly trans­form our ther­a­peu­tic ar­se­nal,’ Lu said in a state­ment.

The new funds, he added, will fu­el the in­ter­nal pipeline as Sen­ti plans to file its first INDs in 2023 for a log­ic-gat­ed al­lo­gene­ic CAR-NK cell ther­a­py dubbed SEN­TI-202 (for acute myeloid leukemia) and an­oth­er mul­ti-armed al­lo­gene­ic CAR-NK cell ther­a­py dubbed SEN­TI-301 (for he­pa­to­cel­lu­lar car­ci­no­ma). The crew will al­so work on ad­di­tion­al can­di­dates while build­ing out clin­i­cal-scale man­u­fac­tur­ing for the off-the-shelf CAR-NK cell ther­a­pies.

CALQUENCE is a registered trademark of the AstraZeneca group of companies.

At the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, blood cancer researchers from around the world gathered virtually to discuss the progress that has been made in the field of hematology. Over the past decade, that progress has been tremendous. We’ve seen not only breakthrough approaches to care, but also significant improvement upon existing novel treatments and exploring combinations within those medicines.1 These advances have transformed expectations of what a blood cancer diagnosis now means for patients. While we’ve come a long way, I believe the most exciting scientific discovery is yet to come, and that future advances will truly transform patient care.

Michel Vounatsos, Biogen CEO (Credit: World Economic Forum/Valeriano Di Domenico)

In a surprise move, Biogen announced Monday that it will cut the price of its controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm in half, slashing the cost from $56,000 to $28,000.

The sudden discount marks a sudden turnaround for the big biotech as it struggles to turn around a drug whose stuck-in-the-mud sales and political ramifications have sent the company into turmoil and triggered the ousting of its longtime chief scientist. Biogen’s leadership had resisted calls since June to reduce the price of the drug.

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Right as the new Omicron variant is poised to increase rapidly across the US, the federal government has effectively run out of the only monoclonal antibody treatment that works against it, and at least one major hospital system is now halting all mAb infusions.

Late last month, the federal government paused shipments of GlaxoSmithKline and Vir’s mAb treatment sotrovimab in order to conserve supplies of the only treatment that might work against the Omicron variant. Last week, however, HHS told Endpoints News that the move to hold back sotrovimab was unrelated to Omicron, and due to a surplus of Eli Lilly mAbs, which aren’t effective against Omicron.

One of Pfizer’s new vaccine TV commercials never mentions its vaccine brand Comirnaty. In fact, it doesn’t mention vaccines or Covid-19 at all and doesn’t show people wearing masks or social distancing. Yet it’s clear the ad is talking about the pharma’s Covid-19 vaccines.

The ad’s voiceover talks about the unremarkable moments and routines that matter, like getting a coffee refill at a diner or Sunday grocery shopping. The images shift from those everyday moments to a scientists and purple lidded glass vials spinning off a production line and being packed into freezers.

Tom Plitz (L) and Arthur Roach, Chord Therapeutics CEO and founder

About a year after Geneva-based Chord Therapeutics emerged from stealth to see if it could repurpose an old chemotherapy agent for rare diseases, Merck KGaA is swooping in with a buyout.

While the companies are keeping mum about the financial terms of the deal, Merck KGaA is adding Chord’s lead candidate to its neurology pipeline — a small molecule oral version of the chemotherapy drug cladribine dubbed CRD1.

John Oyler, BeiGene CEO (Endpoints News, PharmCube)

Count Novartis in for the burgeoning TIGIT race.

After starting the year by plunking down $650 million upfront to license BeiGene’s PD-1 inhibitor — with positive Phase III data stacking up ever since — Novartis is returning to its biotech partner to pick up a Phase III TIGIT drug while entrusting it with marketing five of its approved cancer treatments in China.

Their goal, BeiGene CEO John Oyler suggests in an interview with Endpoints News, is nothing short of vaulting to a leadership position in the TIGIT space with the additional horsepower that Novartis brings.

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As the new year rapidly approaches, and gyms and health food stores across America prepare for a wave of people seeking weight loss, Novo Nordisk has announced that it does not expect to meet demand for Wegovy, its prescription injectable weight-loss medication for obesity, until the second half of 2022 in the US.

The shortage comes due to manufacturing issues at a contract manufacturer that was tasked with filling syringes for the pens. The news comes just days after Novo announced that it would invest roughly $2.58 billion to expand its manufacturing hub in Kalundborg, Denmark with three new facilities and the expansion of a fourth to keep up with the success of its diabetes and obesity med semaglutide, Wegovy and Rybelsus.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) at the Capitol on Friday, Dec. 17 (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Images)

Sen. Joe Manchin on Sunday derailed President Biden’s trillion-dollar spending package, effectively halting the Democrats’ best chance yet to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, among a bevy of other health-related provisions tacked onto the Build Back Better Act.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki, stunned by Manchin’s announcement on Fox News, said in a statement: ‘Senator Manchin claims that this change of position is related to inflation, but the think tank he often cites on Build Back Better — the Penn Wharton Budget Institute — issued a report less than 48 hours ago that noted the Build Back Better Act will have virtually no impact on inflation in the short term, and, in the long run, the policies it includes will ease inflationary pressures.’

The AbbVie/Alvotech debacle on a Humira biosimilar has taken yet another turn — escalating tensions between the two biotechs.

The pharma giant filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission on Friday, trying to prevent Alvotech from selling a lower cost version of AbbVie’s Humira, an anti-TNF drug that treats rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis and Crohn’s disease, among other ailments.
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