Cellectis quits CAR-T and pivots to ‘in vivo’ gene editing
Summary:
The French biotech is ending work on its clinical-stage donor-derived cell therapies, saying the commercial and clinical landscape for CAR-T in blood cancers has changed materially. It will redirect to preclinical cardiovascular programmes — HEAL-101 (base editing, APOC3) and HEAL-201 (epigenetic editing, PCSK9). Shares fell as much as 43%.
NurExone and NanoPass sign MOU on exosome delivery for regenerative eye and skin
Summary:
The companies will evaluate NanoPass’s FDA-cleared MicronJet intradermal platform with NurExone’s MSC-derived exosome formulations, covering suprachoroidal delivery for optic nerve damage and intradermal delivery for skincare and aesthetic applications. NurExone retains the preclinical proof-of-concept results; new IP is jointly owned.
Drug firms’ secret data supercharge AI protein models
Summary:
A pharma consortium fine-tuned OpenFold3 on 20,167 proprietary protein–ligand structures contributed by five companies. On held-out tests it reached high accuracy for over half, versus a third for public OpenFold3. Not yet peer-reviewed; the model isn’t publicly available.
Osteoporosis affects millions: could modified cells rebuild their bones?
Summary:
Ten women with advanced osteoporosis received a single infusion of their own mesenchymal stromal cells, modified with fucose so they home to bone. Fractures dropped from roughly yearly to once a decade. Small, uncontrolled, and cells were never tracked.
Clues to immune havoc in the brain
Summary:
Alzheimer’s brains accumulate cloned killer T cells. A WashU mouse study in Nature Neuroscience finds dendritic cells in cervical lymph nodes give the order to clone before the T cells enter the brain; blocking them reduced tau-driven neurodegeneration.
