Oct. 31 Preclinical Quick Takes: Beam licenses tech from Prime Medicine; plus BioVersys, Astellas-Kyoto University and more

Beam expands base editing platform with prime editing
Beam Therapeutics disclosed single base transitions and sickle cell disease as the first applications of its sublicense to prime editing technology from newco Prime Medicine. With the licensing deal, the two types of point mutation gene editors, both from base editing pioneer David Liu, will be developed within Beam. Prime editing, which marries CRISPR-Cas9 with reverse transcription to make any single base edit and larger genetic insertions and deletions, has a farther reach than Beam’s base editing platform, which is limited to correcting certain disease-related point mutations (see "Liu Describes New CRISPR Tech, Co-founds Company To Develop It").

BioVersys gets CARB-X grant for new antibiotics class
BioVersys AG received a grant from CARB-X of up to $3.9 million to develop compounds inhibiting the transcription factor AgrA to treat Staphylococcus aureus infections. Instead of directly killing the S. aureus, AgrA inhibitors would prevent the production of proteins, including toxics, driving the severity of skin and skin structure infections and pneumonia. BioVersys also is eligible for $5 million in milestones. ...