November 10, 2022 | Issue #26

Good Evening

. Welcome back to another issue of Spannr.

In this week's newsletter

:

🪱 Fishin' with roundworms

🤝 Insilico lands monster deal with Sanofi

💵 This week in fundraising

📝 Q3 earnings season

part II

+ good reads

Ora Biomedical: "Raising a Robot Army to Build the Future of Preventative Medicine"

In June of this year, a new company was teased at the 4th Longevity Therapeutics Summit that had researchers and investors alike buzzing.Presented by none other than Dr. Matt Kaeberlein, this new company – named Ora Biomedical – focused on high-throughput drug screening using robotics and AI.But having their website launch only just last month, the community had many more questions than answers in regards to this unique University of Washington spinout.So to find out what Ora has been up to since – and exactly how its team plans to target aging by combining robots, AI, and roundworms – we reached out to Ora Biomedical’s co-founder and CEO, Mitchell Lee.

Insilico Medicine Signs Strategic Research Collaboration with Sanofi

On Tuesday, Paris-based pharma giant Sanofi announced a massive artificial intelligence (AI) drug discovery deal worth up to $1.2 billion with Hong Kong-based and longevity-affluent startup, Insilico Medicine.The DetailsThe deal represents a multi-year, multi-target strategic research collaboration that leverages Insilico Medicine’s AI platform, PharmaAI, to advance drug development candidates for up to six new targets.Sanofi will pay Insilico Medicine a total of $21.5 million to benefit from PharmaAI and gain access to a team of drug discovery scientists with the goal of identifying, synthesizing, and advancing high-quality lead therapeutic compounds up to development candidate stage.A Big Win For InsilicoWith additional potential payments that could total more than $1.2 billion, Sanofi's partnership represents Insilico's largest deal to date.“We’re growing like crazy right now in this market,” CEO Alex Zhavoronkov said in a recent interview. “And we’re not doing acquisitions—we’re growing our internal capabilities.”The new collaboration falls on the heels of Insilico raising $60 million in a series D financing round back in June. Not to mention, the startup added another $35 million just two months later.At the time, we reported that Insilico was planning on using the fresh capital to (1) fuel the growth of its pipeline, (2), add finishing touches to its PharmaAI drug discovery suite, and (3), further develop a robotic – "no humans allowed" – drug discovery lab equipped with autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs).The company currently has 31 programs across fibrosis, oncology, immunology, the central nervous system, and aging-related disease. Its first AI-discovered drug is currently the only asset in the clinic and is being evaluated in a phase 1 study in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).The Bigger PictureAmid a slowdown in biotech funding, alongside research firms turning back the dial on R&D expenses, the rapidly growing AI-based drug discovery niche has remained largely unfazed by such headwinds.For context, this week, Juvena Therapeutics raised $41 million to hone in on the potential of secreted proteins. The new funds will be used to, reportedly, expand its AI-enabled drug discovery platform. We also have Ora Biomedical (covered above) in midst of a Seed round boasting a proprietary "WormBot" AI-based drug discovery platform.In an era of cutting costs amid economic uncertainties, this makes sense. AI-based drug discovery platforms allow management teams to trim overhead costs and drastically expedite the preclinical drug development process.Now, circling back to the field of longevity, it's worth mentioning that the Sanofi deal is NOT a drug discovery collaboration focused specifically on aging therapeutics. Instead, according to Zhavoronkov, the collaboration’s main objective is to “get as many effective therapeutics as possible to patients worldwide as fast as possible.”But given that Insilico's CEO Alex Zhavoronkov is very outspoken about longevity, it's great to see the early success backed with big figures.While AI-driven platforms are still very much unproven and have arguably been an overhyped area (relative to results), it's still a nascent corner of the market. In other words, it's going to take some time to see all of these new initiatives come to fruition.

• Juvena Therapeutics, a biotech company scaling a computational platform to map the therapeutic potential of secreted proteins, raised $41 million in an oversubscribed Series A co-led by Mubadala Capital and Horizons Ventures

• Ceros Financial Services announced that Ceros Capital Markets, its investment banking division, has completed a $7.5 million Series A round for Wesper, which has developed the first clinical-grade FDA-cleared platform to bring the full cycle of sleep therapy to home users

• Neurotrack recently secured $10 million in new funding to support and accelerate its develop of a 3-minute digital test to screen for cognitive impairment

• Catalio Capital Management, a life sciences investment firm, announced the successful close of its inaugural special situations fund, Catalio Credit Opportunities Fund I with over $85 million in commitments

• SENS Research Foundation announces new 2022 "End of Year" fundraising campaign

📝 Q3 2022 Earnings Reports continue to roll in for many of the pub co's in our Longevity Stock Index.Here's who reported this past week:

• Unity Biotechnology, Lineage Cell Therapeutics, Recursion, Alector, Humacyte, Celularity, Vigil Neuroscience, Precision Biosciences, HCW Biologics, MAIA Biotech

• OrsoBio Acquires ACMSD Inhibitor Program to Address Mitochondrial Dysfunction from Mitobridge, an Astellas Company

• Cambrian Biopharma CEO James Peyer Named 2022 "BioTech Company CEO of the Year"

• Rejuvenate Bio Launches New Office in San Diego

• NYSCF–Supported Cell Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease is Entering Clinical Trials

• Deep Longevity is ready to launch its new SaaS anti-aging platform, SenoClock, that allows users to receive comprehensive and actionable pace of aging reports based on various data types, such as blood tests, psychological surveys, gut flora composition, and more

• Five Alarm Bio has an anti-aging drug agenda firmly in its sights

• NIH-Funded "Food Pyramid" Rates Lucky Charms Healthier Than Steak (PirateWires)

• Life Satisfaction and Age (Flowing Data)

• Following your gut: How scientists are getting closer to linking the microbiome and chronic diseases (STAT+)

• Alcohol Deaths Claim Lives of Working-Age Americans (NYT)

• Peptides are the longevity secret that can literally save your life (Influencive)

• Lab-grown blood given to people in world-first clinical trial (BBC)

• ‘The tipping point is coming’: Unprecedented exodus of young life scientists is shaking up academia (STAT)

• Regenerating The Thymus: Profile Of Greg Fahy (Forbes)

• Test promises to detect cancer early – before symptoms (Methuselah Foundation)

Performance:

Latest Price: $125.277d-Return: -6.24%Market Cap: $10.68b

Big Movers:

Geron (GERN): 11.33%Vigil Therapeutics (VIGL): -29.47%Brainstorm Cell (BCLI): -51.03%