Beyond Biotech

→ WHAT IT COVERS Stanford bioengineering professor Stanley Qi, founder of EpicBio, explains how the company's GEMS platform uses a miniaturized Cas protein — one-third the size of Cas9 — to perform reversible epigenetic editing without cutting DNA, with lead program EPI-321 targeting FSHD muscular dystrophy in an upcoming Phase 1 trial. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Mutation-agnostic targeting:** Epigenetic editing can treat diseases with hundreds of distinct mutations in a single gene — like cystic...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Patrick Andre, CSO of Diagonal Therapeutics, explains how the company's clustering antibody platform targets the root cause of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and pulmonary arterial hypertension. Lead program DIAG-723 holds FDA and EMA orphan drug designation and is entering clinical trials mid-2026, backed by a $125M Series B.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Thierry Logel, managing partner of Karma Partners and chairman of Argo Bio, explains how the €50M European venture builder model addresses the structural gap between world-class academic biomedical research and commercial biotech company creation, having already spun out eight companies with three closing seed rounds totaling over €43M.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Parashar Dhapola, CEO of NIGEN Analytics, explains how multi-agent AI systems address the core bottleneck in single-cell omics: cell type annotation. He covers where AI genuinely delivers in biopharma, why cherry-picking poses greater risk than hallucination, and how CytType compresses weeks of iterative analysis into minutes. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Single-cell analytics pipeline structure:** Divide single-cell workflows into three distinct phases — primary (raw sequencing to...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Magdalena Tyrpien, CEO and cofounder of Nionyx Bio, discusses the company's AAV-based gene therapy platform targeting rare kidney diseases, days after winning the BIO-Europe Spring 2026 Startup Spotlight in Lisbon. The six-month-old startup has raised $4M seed funding and targets an IND filing within 18 months. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Human-first capsid development:** Rather than developing AAV capsids in mouse models and hoping results translate, Nionyx Bio develops and validates...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Dr Rosanne Dunn, CSO and cofounder of HaemaLogiX, details the company's precision immunotherapy pipeline targeting kappa and lambda myeloma antigens (KMA and LMA) in multiple myeloma and amyloidosis, covering Phase 2b trial plans, CAR-T development at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and a planned 2026 IPO. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Target Specificity Advantage:** KMA and LMA appear exclusively on malignant plasma cells, not healthy ones, meaning capamab treatment avoids depleting...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Koenraad Wiedhaup, co-founder and CEO of Leyden Labs, and CSO Clarissa Kosch explain how their intranasal antibody spray delivers broad-spectrum protection against influenza and coronaviruses directly at the nasal entry point, addressing critical gaps left by traditional vaccines, backed by newly published preclinical data and €50 million in European funding.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Field Fisher partner Janita Good outlines how biotech companies can structure themselves from inception to maximize partnering and licensing outcomes with large pharma, covering corporate architecture, equity documentation, commercialization planning, and current market conditions heading into 2024's gradual sector recovery. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Hub-and-spoke corporate structure:** Set up a holding company (HoldCo) with separate subsidiary SPVs for each asset — one for the...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Sean Mac, CEO of Kynova Therapeutics, outlines the company's GPCR-based drug discovery platform, its lead anti-CCR8 antibody DT-7012 in Phase 1, a $32M Series B raise, and the strategic rebrand from Domain Therapeutics as the company targets immuno-oncology and inflammation. → KEY INSIGHTS - **CCR8 Treg depletion mechanism:** DT-7012 targets CCR8 to deplete T regulatory cells from the tumor microenvironment, restoring immune competitiveness against tumors.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Sergei Jakimov, founding partner of Longevicy VC, argues that health misinformation on social media constitutes a public health crisis, driven by bounded rationality and credibility gaps. He outlines how scientific institutions can reclaim audience trust by adopting the same accessible communication formats used by wellness influencers.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Professor Matthew Wood of Oxford's Harrington Rare Disease Centre outlines how antisense oligonucleotides, gene editing, and AI tools can be developed as scalable platforms to accelerate therapies for the estimated 500 million rare disease patients worldwide, with a target of delivering treatments within 100 days of genetic diagnosis.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Avital Sharir, cofounder and CSO of Prophet, an Israeli AI drug discovery startup launched in late 2024 from ION Labs, explains how Prophet maps proteins and small molecules into a shared mathematical space to screen billions of molecules at scale, targeting previously undruggable proteins without requiring solved 3D structures. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Shared Interaction Space Architecture:** Prophet converts drug discovery into a search problem by embedding proteins and small...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Thomas Hopkins, VP and Head of Explore R&D at Eli Lilly, explains how the program works as a full-stack R&D partner for early-stage biotechs. Since launching in mid-2022, Explore R&D has signed over 100 collaborations with roughly 70 companies across 10 countries, scaling from under 10 to nearly 50 deals annually. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Early engagement window:** Explore R&D accepts biotech partners at any stage, from pre-incorporation spin-outs to post-IPO companies with 100-plus...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Claire Waring, founder and CEO of Cumulus Oncology, explains how her platform-agnostic, virtual biotech model builds a risk-adjusted oncology pipeline across three preclinical assets — GPR68, a PARG inhibitor, and a GTPase program — targeting candidate nomination in 2026 and first clinical trials in 2027. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Platform-agnostic portfolio building:** Rather than committing to one platform technology or modality, Cumulus takes option agreements on assets across...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Tim Opler, Stifel managing director with 150+ deals totaling over $100 billion, outlines five trends reshaping biopharma over the next decade: M&A acceleration driven by patent cliffs, expanding mass-market drug opportunities, China's emergence as an innovation force, AI transforming medical diagnosis, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs including cell therapy cures.

→ WHAT IT COVERS Three Labiotech journalists — Jules Adam, Willow Sharnival, and Rui Peter — each identify five biopharma companies to watch in 2026, spanning radiopharma, gene therapy, psychedelics, GLP-1 obesity drugs, and cardiovascular medicine, totaling 15 companies with near-term clinical catalysts. → KEY INSIGHTS - **Abivax maintenance data as inflection point:** Abivax's oral microRNA therapy for ulcerative colitis drove a roughly fivefold stock increase after positive phase three...

→ WHAT IT COVERS Hakan Goker, Managing Director at M Ventures — Merck KGaA's €600 million corporate venture arm — outlines how pharma CVC operates across healthcare, life science tools, and electronics, while sharing 2025 portfolio highlights and investment priorities heading into 2026 across oncology, autoimmune, neurology, and fertility. → KEY INSIGHTS - **CVC Dual Mandate:** Corporate venture funds like M Ventures operate under two simultaneous obligations — strategic optionality for the...