Category Archives: Translational research

By Haojing Rong and Aimee Raleigh, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC This blog post is the second in a series on key diligence concepts and questions. If you missed the intro blog post yesterday, click

Neuroscience has had a tough run of news lately. With Amgen deprioritizing neuro this year, Pfizer doing the same last year, and others like BMS, GSK, and AZ cutting back on CNS a few years earlier, it would seem dark

This blog was written by Aoife Brennan, CEO of Synlogic Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. New therapeutic platforms, like those based on cell and gene therapy, provide potential to address diseases in new ways

This blog was written by Nello Mainolfi, CSO and co-founder of Kymera Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Translation of well validated biology into therapeutics remains one of the biggest challenges of modern drug development,

This blog was written by Adam Rosenberg, CEO of Rodin Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. After decades of challenges in neuroscience research and development, there is new hope that we can design better clinical

This blog is written by Tom Hughes, CEO of Navitor Pharma, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. We finally are beginning to understand the biological basis of aging and age-related diseases, making the discovery of new

This blog was written by Adam Rosenberg, CEO of Rodin Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Disappointing results in Alzheimer’s clinical trials seem to be announced on an almost monthly, and sometimes weekly basis: Merck’s

This blog was written by Mark Manfredi, CEO of Kyn Therapeutics and former Atlas Entrepreneur-in-Residence, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.  Last week we learned about the failure of the much anticipated ECHO-301/KEYNOTE-252 trial that studied

This blog was written by Michael Gladstone, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Biotech newsflow came out the gate a little slow in 2018 (though it appears it may be speeding up

The field of gene and cell therapy has witnessed an unprecedented few months, almost unimaginable only a few years ago. It’s worth pausing to reflect on some of the recent highlights: FDA approval of two chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell

The term “undruggable” has entered common industry vernacular over the past two decades to describe biologic targets that couldn’t be addressed via narrow conventional pharmacologies involving catalytic-site inhibitors and antibodies. The “druggable genome” historically included intracellular catalytic proteins, (e.g., enzymes

Neuroscience has quietly become a hot space for startups. Across a range of neurologic conditions, contrarian investors have been fueling entrepreneurs to discover and develop novel therapeutic strategies. Earlier this week, two Atlas-founded companies, Rodin Therapeutics and Disarm Therapeutics, both announced

This blog was written by Michael Gladstone, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. The 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology (“ASCO”) meeting concluded last week, providing patients, physicians, and industry stakeholders with

The FDA recently approved Imfinzi (durvalumab) for the treatment of bladder cancer, making it the fifth new monoclonal antibody approved this year. More than twenty antibodies have been approved by the FDA since 2015. While not quite the magic bullet envisioned

This blog was written by Nessan Bermingham, CEO of Intellia Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC   Academic discoveries are oxygen for entrepreneurs. But, caveat subscriptor – be careful what you sign. Even high profile

This blog was written by Ros Deegan, CBO of Bicycle Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. When a taxi driver finds out the name of my company, I am inevitably asked, “What does Bicycle Therapeutics

This blog was written by Adam Rosenberg, CEO of Rodin Therapeutics and Atlas EIR, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC.   In my February 2016 post, I wrote “if some of the current generation of high-profile,

This blog was written by Michael Gladstone, Principal at Atlas Venture, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. The biotech industry was reeling after the 2016 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, with many commentators foretelling doom in the

This blog was written by both Bill Marshall, CEO of MiRagen Therapeutics, and Ron Renaud, CEO of RaNA Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Recent news from Alnylam, Ionis, and Mirna Therapeutics regarding toxicity-related setbacks

This blog is written by Michael Gladstone, Principal at Atlas, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. Charles de Gaulle once asked, “How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?” But that might seem

This blog was written by Adam Rosenberg, CEO of Rodin Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. As a controlled experiment, try placing a tape recorder, rotary phone or record album in front of an 8

This blog was written by Vanessa King, CEO of Luc Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC Almost 15 years ago – in 2003, to be precise – I was working with genome sequencing pioneer Craig

This blog was written by Adam Rosenberg, CEO of Rodin Therapeutics, as part of the From The Trenches feature of LifeSciVC. After a long, challenging period for CNS R&D – marked by late-stage clinical failures, mass layoffs, and limited early-stage

This blog was written by Rosana Kapeller, CSO of Nimbus Therapeutics, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. It is the holiday season and as we gorge on delicious and heavy food, and inevitably resolve to eat less

The exciting renaissance in cell and gene therapy over the past five years has yielded some of the most innovative medical advances in the industry’s pipeline today.  There are now multiple stories of patients getting “cured” of rare diseases, responding

This blog was written by Bill Marshall, co-founder and CEO of miRagen Therapeutics, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. microRNAs are an exciting new class of gene regulatory molecules that act on systems biology, and their modulation

With the start of the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting, all eyes in the biopharma investor community are on Chicago. Social media is alive with #ASCO15 tweets and companies big and small are firing out press releases. Signal from

Biotech fills the news these days – whether it’s the announcement of exciting new clinical data, another high-flying IPO, or a big M&A deal. Amidst the significant “share of voice” in the coverage of young and emerging biotech in the

Venture capital investing in biotech has long been hard to disaggregate: how much goes to “early stage” vs “late stage”, how much goes to CNS vs oncology, discovery vs Phase 3, etc… Today BIO’s David Thomas and Chad Wessel have

This blog was written by Mike Gilman, Atlas’ EIR and CEO of Padlock Therapeutics, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. I thought I was done with immunology. I’m not formally trained as an immunologist, but I fell for it hard

This blog was written by Ankit Mahadevia, CBO of Rodin Therapeutics and Spero Therapeutics, as part of the “From the Trenches” feature of LifeSciVC. There’s an ebb and flow in our business around interest in specific therapeutic areas; hot TAs such

Translating breakthrough science into breakthrough medicines is a daunting task.  It’s also worth every nail-biting minute waiting for the next result that brings you closer to helping a patient in need.  We started miRagen based on some amazing laboratory results

Every life sciences company needs to make good program choices.  Big pharma creates value through smart portfolio management while small biotech companies can be defined by a single lead asset.  In both cases, the opportunity cost of poor decision-making can

Much has been written about the merits and demerits of the virtual biotech model.  In essence, a virtual biotech outsources all non-core activities and rejects the need for in-house laboratories.  Instead, a small internal team manages execution outside the company,

Startup Biotechs need bigger drug companies for lots of things, including R&D collaborations, investments, non-dilutive funding, and eventual liquidity via M&A. The health of today’s ecosystem depends on biotech and pharma working together. But one of the most important and

Extreme clinical phenotypes caused by rare genetic variations have been the basis of some of the most exciting drug targets in today’s pharmaceutical pipeline: PCSK9 in cholesterol, sclerostin in bone diseases, Nav1.7 for pain.  The rare gene signatures underlying these

On January 9th, 2014, Intercept Pharmaceuticals (ICPT) released a very interesting piece of news regarding their Phase 2 FLINT (Farnesoid X Receptor Ligand Obeticholic Acid in Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis Treatment) trial.  FLINT, a test of their FXR agonist obeticholic acid (OCA)

Scientific reproducibility hit mainstream this month with a feature article and editorial in The Economist; they highlight issues around the failure to replicate peer-reviewed research, academic biases found in science, use of scarce resources in national science budgets, and even share a primer in statistics

Pharmaceutical R&D is a very low velocity, high cost process, which makes it hard for any individual to gather the large body of experience required to inform better decision-making.  This is why pharma’s embedded institutional knowledge should be the source

Innovation paid dividends in 2012.  We often debate the relative “innovation quotient” of the companies we evaluate and invest in here at Atlas, and of the biomedical sector as a whole. The basic premise we hold is that high innovation