‘Switchable’ CAR-T startup raises $112 million

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Onto the biotech news today.

The need-to-know this morning

• In an effort to reduce spending, Editas Medicine said it plans to seek a partner to continue the development of its CRISPR-based treatment for sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia. The company is shifting focus to an experimental treatment, still in animal testing, that performs the CRISPR editing inside the body.

Pfizer’s and Lilly’s telehealth ties under scrutiny

A group of senators led by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) today demanded answers from Pfizer and Eli Lilly about their relationship with the telehealth prescribers that they point patients to, seeking to determine whether the companies are violating the federal anti-kickback rules.

The pharma giants recently both launched websites that allow people to learn about their medications, follow links to “talk to a doctor now,” and fill their prescriptions through an online pharmacy. This follows a growing trend of drugmakers directing patients to select telehealth platforms, offering instant access to clinicians who can prescribe their treatments.

This kind of arrangement “appears intended to steer patients toward particular medications and creates the potential for inappropriate prescribing that can increase spending for federal health care programs,” read the letters sent by the senators.

Read more from STAT’s Katie Palmer.

Pharma execs donated more to Democrats recently

During the final stretch of the campaign season, most pharma executives gave to their own companies’ political action committees, if they gave at all. But among the six executives who donated to individual candidates, five gave to Democratic candidates, even though Democratic lawmakers passed the most aggressive drug pricing reform in decades through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

BMS CEO Chris Boerner gave $5,000 to a campaign committee affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Three executives gave to Vice President Harris’ campaign: BioMarin CEO Alexander Hardy gave the maximum possible contribution of $3,300; Julie Kim, the head of Takeda’s U.S. division, also gave $3,300; and Thomas Gibbs, the head of the U.S. division at Lundbeck, gave $100.

UCB CEO Jean-Christophe Tellier gave to two moderate congressional Democrats: Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s (D-Del.) Senate campaign, and Rep. Nanette Barragán’s (D-Calif.) re-election effort.

Read more from STAT’s Rachel Cohrs Zhang.

‘Switchable’ CAR-T startup raises $112 million

AvenCell Therapeutics, a startup designing so-called “switchable” CAR-T therapies, said today that it raised $115 million in a Series B round led by Novo Holdings, the company that manages the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s assets.

AvenCell is developing CAR-T therapies that can be turned “on” or “off” with a goal to more safely and effectively treat cancer patients. The company is testing two candidates, AVC-101 and AVC-201, in relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia, and it has other candidates that are slated to enter the clinic over the next two years.

AvenCell was launched in 2021 by Blackstone Life Sciences, Cellex Cell Professionals, and Intellia Therapeutics.

The parents who founded companies to cure their kids

What happens when parents seek to develop drugs for their own children? Three parents took the stage at the STAT Summit to discuss what it’s like to build companies tackling rare diseases that affect their children.

They said they’re more motivated than other biotechs to continue to try, even when the rest of the industry has no interest.

“Pharmaceutical companies may get a new CEO, or may have a new board, or may have new priorities of a direction they want to go in that makes financial sense, but that doesn’t always match with the priorities of parents,” said Allyson Berent, chief scientific officer at the Foundation for Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics.

And, as they watch their children’s disease progress, they also feel greater urgency to get treatments through approval and want to see greater flexibility in the regulatory process.

Read more from STAT’s Anil Oza.

More reads

• Life without sickle cell beckons boy who completed gene therapy, New York Times
• J&J’s ketamine-derived drug is taking off, Wall Street Journal
• Opinion: Forcing presidents and candidates to share their medical history is a terrible idea, STAT