Gilead Sciences provided $3 million in grant funding to eight organizations that will provide health services in rural parts of the U.S. that are disproportionately affected by HIV.  

Pfizer is purchasing Lucira Health, a diagnostics company which makes an at-home combination COVID-19 and flu test.  
 
Thermo Fisher Scientific opened a new cell therapy facility at UCSF. The partnership was first announced in 2021; the newly opened cGMP manufacturing facility is adjacent to UCSF Medical Center’s Mission Bay campus. 
 

Arcus Biosciences, Amyris, Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Sight Sciences, and Twist Biosciences were included in the Financial Times’ list of fastest-growing companies across the Americas.  
 
Caribou Biosciences was granted Fast Track designation by the FDA for  
CB-011, its allogenic CAR-T cell therapy for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.  
 
EpiBiologics launches with $50 million in Series A funding.  
 
Metagenomi was named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company in its 16th annual awards.   
 
Nurix Therapeutics’ investigational targeted protein degrader candidate NX-0479, which has potential in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases, was licensed by Gilead Sciences for $20 million. Nurix could potentially receive up to an additional $425 million in clinical, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments.  
 
Pangaea Data, a company specializing in AI for mapping patients’ disease trajectories, published their product capabilities to accurately predict length-of-stay and risk of mortality in the intensive care unit with 85% precision.  

Pragma Bio raised an additional $10 million in equity to continue its development of proprietary methods in genomic sequencing, artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. 
 
Sonoma Biotherapeutics is partnering with Regeneron in a $75 million deal to develop cell therapies to treat Chron’s disease and other autoimmune conditions.  

Trio Pharmaceuticals, which is developing novel antibody cancer drugs, raised $2.2 million in seed round funding. 

Vaxyte dosed the first participants in its Phase 2 study of VAX-24 in healthy infants. The study will evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of VAX-24, a broad-spectrum 24-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine candidate to prevent invasive pneumococcal disease. 
 
Vir Biotechnology’s new CEO, Marianne De Backer, was recently profiled in Endpoint News about what’s on the horizon for the drugmaker.