Month: June 2026

Bree Foster, assistant editor at Drug Discovery News, sat down with Daniel Tillett, the CEO of Racura Oncology, to discuss G-quadruplexes, or G4 structures that are pivotal to the Australian biotech's approach to cancer.

“These G-quadruplex structures are found throughout the genome, but they’re particularly enriched in promoter regions of important genes, where they act as regulatory elements,” Tillett explained.

To read how Racura is using G4 structures in its approach to AML and lung caner, read the full article here.

In a recent column for Clinical Leader, Dicot Pharma CEO Elin Trampe discussed how clinical milestones, financing strategy, shareholder value, and partnering considerations must be tightly integrated in early development through late-stage planning.

She also outlined how maintaining scientific rigour while building long-term commercial value shapes trial design, investor communication, and licensing timing in a competitive biotech landscape.

The full article can be accessed here.

Nanexa’s Senior Scientist Anders Johansson outlines in BioXconomy how the next era of GLP‑1 therapies will be defined not by new molecules, but by smarter delivery. While GLP‑1s have already evolved from twice‑daily injections to once‑weekly dosing, the field is now pushing toward monthly — and even quarterly — regimens to reduce patient burden and improve long‑term adherence. Johansson explains that many ultra‑long‑acting candidates rely on new chemical entities with extended half‑lives, but these approaches come with significant safety, manufacturing and tolerability challenges.

The article highlights an alternative path: using advanced depot technologies to transform existing GLP‑1 drugs into long‑acting formulations. Nanexa’s PharmaShell platform encapsulates GLP‑1 analogues in a nanometer‑thin inorganic coating that prevents burst release and enables controlled dissolution for up to three months. By focusing on delivery rather than redesigning the drug itself, Johansson argues that developers can achieve extended dosing intervals more efficiently — potentially reshaping obesity and diabetes care with fewer injections and better patient experience.

Read the full article here. 

The Pharma Navigator’s interview with Nanexa CEO David Westberg at BIO 2026 explores how the company is engineering long‑acting injectables with unprecedented precision. Westberg explains that moving from daily or weekly dosing to monthly or quarterly regimens hinges on three factors: drug potency, tight control of the release profile, and injectable volumes that remain clinically practical. He highlights the importance of achieving a low peak‑to‑trough ratio to maintain stable therapeutic levels and reduce side effects — an area where Nanexa’s ALD‑based PharmaShell technology has shown strong validation.

The piece spotlights Nanexa’s recent work with semaglutide, where the company achieved peak‑to‑trough ratios below 1.5 for both once‑monthly and once‑quarterly formulations, outperforming commercial weekly products. Westberg details how Nanexa’s gas‑phase, dry ALD coating protects fragile biologics inside the depot, ensuring that molecules released even on day 75 or 90 remain fully intact. The interview positions PharmaShell as a next‑generation solution for long‑acting biologics, offering controlled release, molecular stability and a viable path to extended‑interval dosing.

Watch the video here. 

BioPharma analyst Tierney Baum wrote a detailed profile for BioCentury on NanoPhoria in June. 

"Using a two-level inhalable particle design, NanoPhoria is exploiting the unique connection between the lungs and heart to deliver peptides and nucleic acids to cardiomyocytes, whose inaccessibility has historically limited the use of biologics in cardiovascular diseases," she wrote.

NanoPhoria, who raised the largest Italian Series A round of €83.5m in October 2025, has designed its “Nano-in-Micro” platform to deliver concentrated doses of therapy straight from the lung to the heart, before systemic dilution in the larger circulation. 

The full article can be accessed here.

Dr Rosanne Dunn, Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at HaemaLogiX, authored an article for Drug Discovery World that explored how the discovery of a new class of tumour‑specific antigens is transforming how we treat plasma cell dyscrasias.

"Proteasome inhibitors, immunomodulatory drugs, anti‑CD38 antibodies, and, more recently BCMA‑directed CAR‑T cells and bispecifics, have each extended survival and transformed expectations. But the malignant plasma cell clone adapts, escapes, and ultimately progresses through every line of therapy. The central limitation is not the ingenuity of modalities but the biology of the targets themselves" she said.

Read the full article here. 

In June, Cereno Scientific CMO and Head of R&D Rahul Agrawal spoke with Clinical Leader Executive Editor Abby Proch about the scientific and strategic rationale behind extending the company’s Phase IIb study duration. He also shares how patient input, regulatory guidance, and earlier-phase data shaped a design intended to generate more meaningful and durable insights in a complex, heterogeneous disease.

Read the full article here. 

In Manufacturing Chemist, reporter Kevin Robinson explores how Nanexa is using nano‑engineering to transform short‑acting drugs into long‑acting injectables. The article centres on PharmaShell, the company’s atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology that coats active ingredients in nanometre‑thin inorganic layers to control release with exceptional precision. CEO David Westberg explains how tailoring the coating’s thickness and composition allows developers to engineer predictable, extended drug release profiles — reducing dosing frequency, improving adherence and opening new possibilities for patient‑centric treatment design.

Robinson highlights the broader implications for manufacturing and scalability, noting that PharmaShell’s process is cost‑effective, adaptable and compatible with a wide range of APIs. By enabling long‑acting formulations without redesigning the underlying drug, Nanexa is positioning ALD‑based depots as a powerful modality for next‑generation injectables. The piece frames the platform as a convergence point between advanced materials engineering and modern drug formulation — one with clear potential to reshape how long‑acting therapies are developed.

Read the full article here. 

Cereno Scientific and Racura Oncology spoke to DDN Assistant editor Allison Whitten about drug repurposing, in light of the recent FDA announcement that it had launched an initiative seeking to target unmet needs across many conditions. 

“This initiative is long overdue, but like all new FDA initiatives it will be the details that matter,” Daniel Tillett, CEO of Racura Oncology, told DDN. “The FDA recognizes that there is little or no commercial incentive to pursue labeling changes for drug repurposing if a drug is off patent. Until there is a viable mechanism to recoup the costs involved in running repurposing studies, commercial interest in drug repurposing will remain muted.”

While Sten Sorensen, CEO of Cereno Scientific, commented that the new FDA initiative could help their clinical program move forward in two main ways. “A more structured and supportive regulatory framework for repurposed drugs has the potential to streamline interactions with the FDA, reduce perceived development risk, and accelerate the path toward approval,” he said. “From a partnering perspective, the initiative also matters. Big pharma, when evaluating transactions, views repurposed drugs as a risk, and a clear regulatory signal of support from FDA for repurposed drug development improves the attractiveness of assets like ours in those conversations.”

However, Sorensen added that “demonstrating disease-modification in a complex disease like PAH requires robust, long-duration clinical data, and that takes time and resources regardless of the regulatory environment. Generating the kind of evidence that satisfies both regulators and potential partners remains the central challenge, and one we are addressing head-on through the design of our global Phase 2b study.”

Read the full article here. 

Fierce Biotech spoke with Affibody about the plans for its Phase III IL-17A inhibitor izokibep. 

Senior editor James Waldron wrote: "Affibody brought Week 52 data along to EULAR 2026 to remind people of what the drug can do when compared to PsA mainstays like Novartis’ Cosentyx and UCB’s Bimzelx. Affibody’s slides show izokibep holding its own on measurements like a 50% improvement in rheumatology symptoms (ACR50), as well as a 70% improvement and the proportion of patients who saw a 100% improvement in psoriasis area and severity (PASI100)."

Read the full article here.