{"title":"Innovation to investment: how to build your first life sciences pitch deck","authors":"Katherine E. Reuther, Darren Cooke, Mark Kessel","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02730-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02730-9","url":null,"abstract":"A strong pitch deck can help make a good first impression, establish credibility and build the confidence to secure the support and financial resources needed for eventual commercial success.","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144630285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"People","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02732-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02732-7","url":null,"abstract":"Recent moves of note in and around the biotech and pharma industries.","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144629930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Inducing bacterial calcification for systematic treatment and immunomodulation against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus","authors":"Wanying Zhang, Liang Liu, Qingyan Zhang, Huidan Lu, Anyao Li, Yuqiao Huang, Wenting Zhang, Hanhui Li, Xiaoyan Lu, Xinliang Ming, Ze Yang, Hao Shou, Yilin Wang, Jingyan Xia, Feng Xu, Ben Wang","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02736-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02736-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Methicillin-resistant <i>Staphylococcus aureus</i> (MRSA) has become one of the deadliest bacteria globally due to antibiotic resistance. In this study, we crosslinked antigen-binding fragments of monoclonal antibodies against the wall-teichoic acid of <i>S. aureus</i> with polysialic acid to form an antibody‒PSA conjugate, which can effectively target and induce calcification on the surface of MRSA. This process eliminates bacteria by hindering the energy metabolism and multiple essential metabolic pathways of MRSA. We found that bacterial calcification leads to increased expression of calprotectin, S100A8/S100A9, in macrophages and monocytes in vivo and can stimulate the activation of macrophages to an inflammatory state, thereby promoting bacterial eradication as an immunomodulator. Systemic administration of the antibody‒PSA conjugate demonstrates high efficacy and safety for treating chronic lung infections and chronic osteomyelitis caused by MRSA in mice. This study offers a promising therapy for treating drug-resistant bacteria and related refractory pathogenic infections.</p>","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144629714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Ocean-grown bioplastics","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02746-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02746-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Uluu co-founder Julia Reisser, who studied plastic pollution and was looking for an alternative to fossil fuel plastics, knew that a PHA polymer could be created by microbial fermentation. What to feed these microbes was the next critical step: bioplastics had so far been created by feeding the microbes land crops or waste produce. Instead, the oceanographer identified sugar-rich seaweed, which absorbs carbon dioxide, as the optimum food source. “Seaweed is scalable, affordable and carbon negative. [You can] transform [it] into PHAs, which can replace most, if not all, plastics while remaining biocompatible with [the] environment,” says Reisser.</p><p>Uluu scientists extract the PHAs from the fermenters by bursting the saline-loving microbes with fresh water. Once the PHA is turned into pellets, these can be shaped into films, rigid plastic or fibers to replace nylon. These bioplastics can break down in four weeks, even with home composting.</p>","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144630236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"FDA approves first-in-class HIV prevention shot","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02756-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02756-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The US Food and Drug administration has approved a drug that almost completely protects against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection and only needs to be given twice a year. Gilead Sciences’ injectable antiretroviral drug Yeztugo (lenacapavir) is 100% protective for people who need to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV. It is a first-in-class medication that works by a novel mechanism that disrupts the HIV-1 capsid protein that makes up the virus shell. Other HIV medications have a different target.</p><p>Gilead’s chairman and CEO, Daniel O’Day, called the approval “historic” and, in a statement, said that the drug could “end the HIV epidemic.” The approval was based on two published clinical trials: PURPOSE 1, conducted in 5,000 women in South Africa and Uganda, where there were zero infections, and PURPOSE 2, in 3,200 cisgender men, transgender women and men, and gender non-binary people from several countries, including Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Peru, Thailand and the United States, where only 2 participants were infected.</p>","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144630286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Antibiotic-resistant infections cured by calcium deposition","authors":"Volker Winstel","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02755-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02755-0","url":null,"abstract":"A strategy for treating chronic multidrug-resistant staphylococcal infections kills bacteria by encasing them in a calcium shell.","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144629713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Profiling translated regions in viral genomes at scale","authors":"Iris Marchal","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02748-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02748-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Although viral genome sequencing has progressed rapidly, the functional annotation of elements such as translated regions is still incomplete for most viruses. Computational approaches face challenges in profiling open reading frames (ORFs) and experimental methods are limited by low throughput. Writing in <i>Science</i>, Weingarten-Gabbay et al. now report a massively parallel ribosome profiling method to screen for translated regions in hundreds of viruses in a single experiment. The authors transfected an oligonucleotide synthetic library — in which each oligonucleotide contained a 200-nucleotide viral sequence flanked by constant primers and cloned into an overexpression vector — into two human cell lines and then performed ribosome profiling. The oligonucleotides spanned the 5′ untranslated region and start of the coding sequence of 3,976 genes in 679 viral genomes.</p><p>Ribosome profiling identified 4,208 non-canonical ORFs. When the authors compared the pattern of ribosome footprints in the synthetic library with four native viral infections, they found a strong alignment between the location of footprints that originated from each analysis.</p>","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144630233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mast cells drive Blueprint mega-deal","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02750-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02750-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In one of the biggest biopharma deals of 2025, Sanofi has acquired Blueprint Medicines for a $9.1 billion upfront payment. The agreement gives the Paris-based pharma an approved drug for systemic mastocytosis as well as a broad pipeline that will bolster the company’s presence in immunological diseases. Blueprint Medicines launched in 2011 with series A funding from Third Rock Ventures and F-Prime Capital, and went public in 2015. It has been developing potent tyrosine kinase inhibitors using novel chemistry from its proprietary compound library and artificial intelligence to enhance its drug discovery processes.</p><p>Blueprint gained its first approval in 2020 for oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor Ayvakit (avapritinib), for treating gastrointestinal stromal tumors. The US Food and Drug Administration later granted label expansions in 2021 for advanced and then indolent systemic mastocytosis in 2023. Blueprint estimates that about 30,000–60,000 patients have systemic mastocytosis, a rare disorder that leads to the accumulation of mast cells in various organs and tissues, in the United States alone.</p>","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144630234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Eli Lilly in $650M pact to boost muscle","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02753-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02753-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Eli Lilly is teaming up with Juvena Therapeutics in a deal worth more than $650 million to find molecules that boost muscle health. The collaboration will use Juvena’s JuvNET platform to screen and test proteins secreted by human stem cells as starting points for drugs that restore muscle function. Separately from the deal, Juvena used the platform to develop its lead candidate, JUV-161, a fusion protein of insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF2) — a protein hormone similar to insulin that is secreted by muscle precursor cells and is involved in myoblast differentiation. JUV-161 restores AKT signaling pathways that regulate muscle growth and metabolism and is in a first-in-human trial for human muscle wasting diseases like myotonic dystrophy type 1.</p><p>Muscle-boosting drugs have recently captured biopharma’s interest, driven by the concerns over the side effects of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) agonists such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy (semaglutide) and Lilly’s GLP-1/gastric inhibitory peptide drug Zepbound (tirzepatide). When people shed body weight, they lose muscle as well as fat. Studies suggest muscle loss can range between 25 and 39% of weight lost, raising the risk of sarcopenia and frailty, especially in older people. At least ten muscle-sparing drug candidates are being tested alongside GLP-1 agonists for obesity.</p>","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144630235","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sadik H. Kassim, Fyodor Urnov, Kiran Musunuru, Ann Lee, Luis Barrera, Pamela Stetkiewicz, Julianne Bruno, Matthew Hewitt, Troy Lister, Harry Malech, Lindsay Gasch, Matt Diver, Nicholas Gertler, Felix Grignon, Audrey Le, Michael Lehmicke, Edwin M. Horwitz, David R. Liu, Josephine Lembong, Vanessa Almendro-Navarro
{"title":"Platform solutions for commercial challenges to expanding patient access and making gene editing sustainable","authors":"Sadik H. Kassim, Fyodor Urnov, Kiran Musunuru, Ann Lee, Luis Barrera, Pamela Stetkiewicz, Julianne Bruno, Matthew Hewitt, Troy Lister, Harry Malech, Lindsay Gasch, Matt Diver, Nicholas Gertler, Felix Grignon, Audrey Le, Michael Lehmicke, Edwin M. Horwitz, David R. Liu, Josephine Lembong, Vanessa Almendro-Navarro","doi":"10.1038/s41587-025-02744-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02744-3","url":null,"abstract":"Platform-based approaches for gene-editing therapies could markedly improve development efficiency, reduce costs and increase access for patients with rare diseases. Although gene editing has shown remarkable clinical success for a small number of Mendelian disease indications, broader adoption faces substantial hurdles. We propose strategies to overcome these challenges through modular platforms for nonclinical and chemistry, manufacturing and controls (CMC) data reuse, risk-based manufacturing quality, and streamlined umbrella clinical trials for regulatory efficiency and accelerated approval.","PeriodicalId":19084,"journal":{"name":"Nature biotechnology","volume":"93 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":46.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144630284","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}