JPM Roundup | Boris Johnson Apologizes | $200M For Transcarent

Plus: Trump blasts politicians who won’t reveal vaccine status as ‘gutless’

The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference is happening this week, an event that runs the gamut with presentations from some of the world’s largest public companies to updates from promising startups. Several of those presenting today are alumni of our Forbes Under 30 lists. Here’s what they’re up to.

Mammoth Biosciences: Cofounders Trevor Martin, Janice Chen and Lucas Harrington, who were on the 2019 Under 30 Healthcare list, are developing a protein toolbox of new Crispr systems to enable both diagnostics and therapeutics. (Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Jennifer Doudna is also a cofounder.) In October 2021, Mammoth announced Vertex as its first major partner to develop in vivo gene editing therapies, meaning the editing tools can be administered directly into the body, as opposed to ex vivo, where cells are removed from the patient, treated and returned back into the body. The deal included $41 million upfront and the possibility of up to $650 million if certain milestones are met. This week, Mammoth announced a partnership for in vivo gene editing therapies with Bayer, including an upfront payment of $40 million and potential future payments in excess of $1 billion. Both Vertex and Bayer are banking that two of Mammoth’s proteins — Cas14 and Casɸ — which could be particularly helpful for in vivo gene editing because of their ultra-small size. 

Verge Genomics: Cofounder and CEO Alice Zhang, who was on our 2017 Under 30 Science list, is using artificial intelligence to speed up drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases, including ALS, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. In July 2021, Verge inked a partnership with pharma giant Lilly with $25 million upfront and the potential for $700 million in royalties, to find new ALS treatments. Verge hopes its lead ALS program will be able to start human clinical trials in the third quarter of this year. The candidate, Zhang said, was “developed entirely in-house from target to development candidate in the course of 3 years.” 

Caribou Biosciences: Cofounder and CEO Rachel Haurwitz, who was on our 2014 Science list, is developing Crispr gene editing tools known as chRDNAs (pronounced chardonnays), which are RNA-DNA hybrid guides that can help make edits more precise. (Doudna is also a cofounder.) The company, which went public in July and has a current market cap around $770 million, is focused on applications for cell and gene therapies in oncology. While Caribou doesn’t present until tomorrow, the company said in its November earnings release that it expects to report initial data from its Phase 1 trial for a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma later this year. 

The company, helmed by former Livongo CEO Glen Tullman, just raised a series C round at a $1.62 billion valuation with an eye towards expanding its vision. Transcarent’s customers, which are large-scale employers that self-insure for health coverage, are provided with a concierge medicine-like experience through its digital app, which enables users to connect with a doctor either through text or video call 24 hours a day. For more serious issues, the company will arrange a second opinion and then determine the best doctor and/or hospital to treat the patient. What’s more, those employees who use the service never have to pay premiums, co-pays or other bills.

Deals Of The Week

Billion-Dollar Biotech: Pfizer announced a deal worth up to $1.3 billion with gene therapy company Beam Therapeutics to develop treatments for liver disease. And Selecta Bioscience is teaming with synbio giant Ginkgo Bioworks to develop next-generation viral vectors for gene therapies in a deal potentially worth $1.1 billion.

Beyond mRNA vaccines: BioNTech announced a collaboration deal with Crescendo Biologics worth up to $750 million to develop precision immunotherapies. Meanwhile Moderna is working with Carisma therapeutics to develop chimeric antigen receptor monocyte treatments against cancer, which includes a $45 million up-front cash payment. 

Slowing the biological clock: On Monday, startup Gameto announced a $20 million series A, backed by the likes of 23AndMe cofounder Anne Wojcicki and ARCH Managing Director Robert Nelsen. The company aims to slow ovarian aging to improve fertility and has a long term vision to “make the medical burden of menopause optional.” 

Tackling burnout: DeepScribe, a startup that uses AI to decrease the time doctors have to spend on digitizing their notes, scored a $30 million funding round led by Index Ventures. To ensure accuracy, each transcription of the patient appointment is read by a medical student who is meant to “bridge the gap” between the AI and a traditional medical scribe. 

Hospital At Home: Baxter International, Cardinal Health and Global Medical Response led a $110 million investment in Medically Home, which is helping health systems to provide high-level care and monitoring in a home-based setting. Previous investors include the Mayo Clinic and Kaiser Permanente.

Noteworthy

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed limiting coverage for controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm to only patients participating in clinical trials.

Eikon Therapeutics, which uses fluorescence microscopy for drug discovery, announced a $517.8 million Series B round last week.

Study predicts nearly 153 million adults will have dementia worldwide by 2050. 

Walgreens Boots Alliance will have more than 160 of its doctor-staffed Village Medical clinics open next to drugstores by the end of this year.

Coronavirus Updates

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a public apology today over the fact that he attended a party at 10 Downing Street during the country’s first pandemic lockdown. Revelations of the gathering have fueled massive public backlash and there’ve been calls for his resignation even among members of his own party. The gathering occurred on May 20, 2020, when most of the country was still under lockdown and only a few weeks after Johnson himself was released from the hospital with a severe Covid infection, for which he spent time in intensive care. This latest incident comes in the context of controversy over several rule-breaking events that have occurred at Downing Street while stay-at-home issues were in force. 

“Public leaders, including political leaders hold considerable sway and influence,” Rupali Limaye, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health whose research examines vaccine hesitancy and other public health issues, told Forbes in an email. “As a result, if political leaders do not adhere to public health measures, it undermines the strength of that recommendation, making it less likely that residents will adhere to that recommendation. This kind of behavior not only erodes trust in public health, this behavior also illustrates that certain people are above the law, or in this case, public health measures.” 

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In other coronavirus news:

Hundreds of patients are waiting 12 hours or more for treatment every day in England's emergency rooms, a leaked document suggests. This may be in part due to the omicron surge. 

The Biden administration will send millions of free Covid-19 tests to schools each month in an effort to keep them open. 

A number of U.S. Olympic team members and hopefuls have recently revealed that they tested positive for Covid-19 roughly a month before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics raising the specter that some may not be able to gain entry into China. 

The White House is “actively exploring” whether to make higher quality masks like KN95 and N95s available to all Americans, the administration’s Covid-19 coordinator said today.

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What Else We Are Reading

• ‘I’m going to prove you wrong’: How a D.C. power couple used an ALS diagnosis to create a political juggernaut (Stat)

• Vatican tightens COVID-19 restrictions, applies mandatory vaccination (Religion News)

• The COVID generation: how is the pandemic affecting kids’ brains? (Nature)