On this week’s episode, we chat with Hans Eriksson, chief medical officer (CMO) of HMNC Brain Health, about ketamine and treatment-resistant depression, and with Krishna Polu, CEO, president and co-founder of new kidney health biotech company R1 Therapeutics.

Times:

03:57 HMNC Brain Health

29:47 R1 Therapeutics

HMNC Brain Health

HMNC Brain Health is a Munich-based clinical-stage biopharma company developing personalised treatments for depression. It has a phase 2 programme using oral, non-dissociative ketamine to treat treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

The Ketabon programme, a joint venture between HMNC Brain Health and Develco Pharma, features an oral prolonged-release formulation of ketamine (KET01) for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) with minimal dissociative side effects. This approach aims to make ketamine treatment suitable for use at home, potentially improving the risk profile and patient convenience compared to existing intravenous and intranasal ketamine therapies.

The development of oral prolonged-release ketamine could also extend to other indications beyond depression, such as anxiety, aggression, PTSD, and panic disorder.

Prior to HMNC, Eriksson was CMO at COMPASS Pathways and was senior director of clinical research at Lundbeck, as well as medical science director at AstraZeneca. He has led five clinical programmes in depression, three of which have resulted in regulatory approvals.

R1 Therapeutics

R1 Therapeutics is a US-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of first-in-class therapies for patients with kidney disease.

The company recently announced its launch – during National Kidney Month – with an oversubscribed $77.5m Series A financing, along with the exclusive global license to develop and commercialize AP306 outside of Greater China from China-based Alebund Pharmaceuticals, Ltd.

Proceeds from the financing will fund R1's global development program of AP306 in partnership with Alebund, including a phase 2b study planned to start later this year.

AP306 is a first-in-class, pan phosphate transporter inhibitor in development as a monotherapy for the treatment of hyperphosphatemia in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Whereas currently available approved phosphate lowering therapies work by inhibiting "passive" transport of phosphate through binding phosphate and other mechanisms, AP306 is the only agent that blocks the "active" transport of phosphate for the treatment of CKD.

To get in touch with guest suggestions, or to sponsor or advertise on the podcast, please email jim@deeptechdigest.com

On this week’s episode, we chat with Gabriel Levin, gynecologic oncologist at the McGill University Health Centre, and director of oncology at CureLab Oncology Inc., about elanagen, a promising therapeutic advance for women with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer; Eden Ben, CEO of Amorphical, about nano-amorphous mineral therapeutics inspired by blue crayfish; and Hans Schambye, CEO of BOOST Pharma, a company making progress in the battle with brittle bone disease.

Times:

03:36 Amorphical

26:26 CureLab Oncology

43:31 BOOST Pharma

CureLab Oncology

CureLab Oncology Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company headquartered in the greater Boston area. The company is focused on developing safer, more effective treatments for solid tumours and inflammatory conditions.

CureLab's lead programme, Elenagen, is an investigational DNA therapy consisting of a plasmid encoding the human protein p62/SQSTM1. In clinical studies conducted outside the US, Elenagen demonstrated a strong safety profile and statistically significant clinical benefit when combined with chemotherapy, along with evidence of immune activation and mitigation of chronic inflammation.

Amorphical

Amorphical is a biopharma company advancing a novel class of nano-amorphous mineral therapeutics, inspired by the blue crayfish.

Amorphical's proprietary nano-amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) agent demonstrates a unique mechanism: targeting and neutralizing the acidic microenvironments associated with inflammation and tumours.

The novel pH-modulating approach is already showing traction in a phase 2 FDA trial for hypoparathyroidism and the company recently reported positive data in a Crohn's disease trial, with other programmes in pancreatic cancer.

BOOST

BOOST Pharma is BOOST Pharma was founded based on science from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, a world-leader in cell therapy research. BOOST Pharma is developing a cell therapy treatment, BT-101, a cell therapy for osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease, using mesenchymal stem cells.

BT-101 has demonstrated more than 70% fracture reduction in year one and about 78% in year two during phase I/II trials. The company is now gearing up for phase III paediatric trials with the more severe forms of OI (Types III and IV), aiming to move beyond the usual supportive care model and into potentially disease‑modifying territory.

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As this week’s podcast comes hot on the heels of International Women’s Day and World Kidney Day, which was yesterday, we’ve been able to squeeze them both in. The conversations this week are with Hansa Biopharma CEO Renée Aguiar-Lucander, about imlifidase for kidney transplant patients; Kyron.bio CEO Emilia McLaughlin, about glycosylation; and hydrogel-based drug delivery solutions company AmacaThera’s CEO, Mike Cooke.

Times:

03:56 Kyron.bio

19:14 AmacaThera

43:01 Hansa Biopharma

Hansa Biopharma

Hansa Biopharma AB is set for a busy year. In December, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has notified the company that the previously accepted Biologics License Application (BLA) for imlifidase has been assigned a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) action date of December 19, 2026.

Imlifidase is conditionally approved in the EU, Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland and the UK under the tradename IDEFIRIX for the desensitisation treatment of highly sensitised adult kidney transplant patients with a positive crossmatch against an available deceased donor. IDEFIRIX is also approved in Australia and Switzerland.

The company also has HNSA-5487, a next-generation IgG-cleaving molecule being developed for Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS).

Kyron.bio

French biotech company Kyron.bio and pharma company Servier recently announced a partnership to advance precision glycosylation in antibody therapeutics.

The partnership underlines the two companies’ vision to unlock the potential of glycans in next-generation biologics design to deliver safer and more effective therapeutics for patients

Kyron.bio’s glycobiology platform aims at enhancing the efficacy, safety, and scalability of next-generation antibody therapeutics across multiple disease areas. To date, engineering of glycans have been under-exploited, due to technical challenges, limiting the use of glycan engineering in drug design.

AmacaThera

AmacaThera is a developer of next-generation hydrogel-based drug delivery solutions. Using a blend of known polymers, AmacaThera’s clinically validated hydrogel platform is transforming drug delivery by enabling the precise, tunable, and sustained release of a range of therapeutics, from small molecules to biologics.

Transforming from liquid to gel at body temperature, AmacaThera’s hydrogel enables drugs to be delivered to and stay where they are needed and released over days or weeks, depending on the specific needs of each therapeutic application.

To get in touch with guest suggestions, or to sponsor or advertise on the podcast, please email jim@deeptechdigest.com