The Needle

ISSUE 24 Welcome to The Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science to help you navigate the latest translational research, with a roundup of the latest news on preclinical biotech startups from around the world. The outlook for exits continues to improve, with SpyGlass Pharma ($172.5 million), Veradermics ($294.8 million), and Galecto ($316.3 million) all going public. Even less conventional biotechs like BioRestorative (a developer of adult stem cell therapies for bone disease, metabolic...

ISSUE 23 Welcome to The Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science to help you navigate the latest translational research, with a roundup of the latest news on preclinical biotech startups from around the world. January was an upbeat month for biotech financing and dealmaking, although most of that activity was US-based. Funding highlights include the opening of the IPO market for companies with clinical assets like Aktis Oncology, Erasca, Agomab and Eikon, and $100+ million financing rounds...

ISSUE 22 Happy belated New Year from The Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science to help you navigate the latest translational research, with a roundup of the latest news on preclinical biotech startups from around the world. With the scramble to get announcements and deals before the biotech schmoozefest JP Morgan, it’s been a busy start to January. In terms of translational research, scientists from Ikena Oncology (now Imagene Bio) Espervita Therapeutics, Scripps spinout Abide...

ISSUE 21 Welcome to The Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science to help you navigate the latest translational research, with a roundup of the latest news on preclinical biotech startups from around the world. It has been a busy few weeks for rare disease news, culminating with the FDA’s first approval for a treatment sponsored by a non-profit foundation. In terms of translational research a bumper crop of companies announced research breakthroughs, including Enterprise Therapeutics, Lyvgen...

ISSUE 20 Welcome to The Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science to help you navigate the latest translational research, with a roundup of the latest news on preclinical biotech startups from around the world. In this issue, we look at one of biotech’s hottest areas—multi-specific antibodies. Although the hype has somewhat dissipated since Akeso’s September announcement of disappointing overall survival data from the HARMONi-A study of its bi-specific (PD-1 x VEGF) ivonescimab in lung...

ISSUE 19 Welcome to The Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science to help you navigate the latest translational research, with a roundup of the latest news on preclinical biotech startups from around the world. In this issue, we cover an exciting proof of principle for designing antibodies from scratch using machine learning. Our scan of preclinical startups disclosing research either at meetings or in journals returned a bumper crop. Financings of preclinical startups also ticked over at a...

ISSUE 18 Welcome to The Needle, a newsletter from Haystack Science to help you navigate the latest translational research, with a roundup of the latest news on preclinical biotech startups from around the world. In this issue, we take a look at Treg cell therapy following the announcement of the Nobel prize. In keeping with the Treg theme, we noted that newly relocated US startup Regcell published a couple of papers in prominent journals. Our survey of the translational literature highlights...