Beam Therapeutics, a CRISPR startup launched by the founders of Editas Medicine, has raised $87 million in Series A funding. The company is using CRISPR technology to more precisely target and fix single-point mutations. (Xconomy)
President Donald Trump’s plan to bring down drug prices doesn’t pose much of a threat to drug manufacturers or pharmacy benefit managers. In a speech on Friday, Trump dropped his campaign proposals of enabling the federal government to directly negotiate with Medicare or allowing patients to order low-cost medications from abroad. Pharma and PBM stocks were up on the news. (New York Times)
Novartis said it shouldn’t have entered into a deal with Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. The pharma giant said it signed a $1.2 million, one-year contract with Cohen’s consulting firm for advice on “how the Trump administration might approach certain U.S. healthcare policy matters,” although Cohen didn’t provide any information. Novartis conceded the deal was a “mistake.” (MM&M)
CAR-T biotech firm Bluebird has increased the scope of its discovery pact with the German biotech firm Medigene. The number of its projects will rise from four to six, and the pool of potential milestone payments will increase from $1 billion to $1.5 billion. (Reuters)
23andMe has slapped rival genealogy company Ancestry.com with a lawsuit. The suit claims that by selling kits that identify customers’ relatives based on shared DNA, Ancestry.com is infringing on a patent held by 23andMe for “finding relatives in a database.” (Law360)
