Hello guys, I will have MS Chemistry and been working 2/1 industry experience. I got an interview with Novritis research scientist position in MA. I have been told that they will ask me forward and retro synthesis chemistry questions and my research summary related questions. I am pretty nervous and wondering what kind of questions they will ask. Please help!!

Looking for some guidance around framing a request for my manager. I recently joined a mid size pharma in Boston ( 5 months) and took a pay cut from my last company. I am not sure how to tell this to my manager so that he/she considers during my performance review.

2024-12-09 08:24

STOCKHOLM (Nyhetsbyrån Direkt) Biopharma company Mendus aims to bring its lead drug candidate, vididencel, to market either independently or with a partner. Data from its phase 2 study, presented at the scientific hematology conference American Society of Hematology (ASH), supports this development path.

This was revealed in an interview conducted by Nyhetsbyrån Direkt with Mendus CEO Erik Manting.

The drug candidate vididencel is being developed for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive form of blood cancer. According to Erik Manting, there is interest among potential partners to develop immunotherapy for AML and possibly for other hematological cancers. However, there is also a degree of caution, as it has historically been challenging to find products that deliver results. Interest in AML research comes from both large pharmaceutical companies and emerging players entering the hematology field.

"There is appetite in the industry for deals in this area. The paradox is that many companies are aware that immunotherapy for AML will be groundbreaking, which is why many have conducted substantial evaluations of immunotherapy in this field on their own," said Erik Manting to Nyhetsbyrån Direkt.

Companies active in this field include U.S.-based Bristol Myers Squibb, which developed oral azacitidine, the first maintenance therapy for AML. Bristol Myers Squibb has also tested the immunotherapy drug nivolumab (Opdivo) without finding significant survival benefits. Another U.S. company interested in AML is Gilead Sciences. In March 2020, Gilead acquired Forty Seven for approximately $4.9 billion. Forty Seven had been developing immunotherapies for AML and other cancers. However, in 2023, Gilead discontinued phase 3 trials with its AML candidate magrolimab. Early in 2024, Swiss giant Novartis announced that its AML drug candidate sabatolimab had failed to meet primary endpoints in a phase 3 trial.

"Nothing has delivered, so while the field of immunotherapy for AML is wide open, confidence in finding something that works is also somewhat shaken," Manting added.

Despite interest in the sector, there is caution when it comes to entering partnership agreements.

"I think companies have become a bit more cautious about how data should be resolved. Is this the product you can take forward, and so on," said Erik Manting.

At this year's ASH conference, which ran from December 7-10 in San Diego, Mendus presented updated survival data for vididencel in treating AML. Results from the phase 2 ADVANCE II study continued to show that neither median relapse-free survival (RFS) nor overall survival (OS) had been reached, as most patients remain alive.

Manting stated that "the data speaks for itself" and added, "Our next big step is what I call setting everything up on a silver platter internally. By that, I mean that study protocols, regulatory feedback, manufacturing, and everything else are ready. Our potential partners need to see that the product can be manufactured at scale and at an attractive cost."

Another factor supporting vididencel, according to Manting, is the company's plan to initiate a registrational study in the second half of 2025.

When asked whether the data Mendus has collected so far is attractive enough to secure a potential partnership deal for vididencel, Manting said: "I think the picture is becoming increasingly attractive. Exactly what it takes to make a partnership happen remains to be seen. I don’t have a crystal ball."

However, Manting emphasized that there is no immediate need for a partner before launching the registrational study.

"Principally, we don’t need a partner in place because AML is not a massive indication," said Erik Manting.

The CEO estimates that a registrational study for vididencel would require approximately 150–200 patients and take 3–4 years to complete (36–48 months). Recruitment for the phase 3 study is planned across the U.S., Europe, and Australia.

Manting explained that Mendus could undertake the phase 3 study in stages.

"You can incorporate interim results to ensure that you don’t need to wait until the end of the study to see what’s happening," Manting said, adding that the company does not want to be entirely reliant on a partner.

"We have strong investors backing us. In principle, we want to be ready to launch such a study on our own," said Erik Manting.

Mendus’ three largest shareholders are financially strong entities. The largest is life science investor Adrianus van Herk, holding nearly 36% of the shares and votes, according to Holdings database. The second largest is the publicly listed investment firm Flerie, focused on biotech and pharmaceutical investments. Flerie was founded in 2011 by Thomas Eldered, who previously co-founded Recipharm, a contract manufacturer sold to EQT for nearly SEK 19 billion. According to Holdings, Flerie owns approximately 24% of Mendus’ shares and votes. The third largest shareholder is Sweden’s AP4 pension fund, which holds around 10% of the shares and votes.

"We don’t want to have our back against the wall when negotiating a partnership, nor do we want to be slowed down as we move toward phase 3," said Manting, adding, "Having a strong shareholder base gives you a better position in partnership discussions."

During a presentation at Redeye last week, Manting emphasized the ongoing unmet need for safe and durable treatments for AML, which remains a highly aggressive blood cancer.

In the Quazar AML-001 study, Celgene, a subsidiary of Bristol Myers Squibb, demonstrated a median relapse-free survival of 7.1 months with oral azacitidine for maintenance therapy in AML patients with measurable residual disease (MRD), compared to 2.7 months for the placebo group receiving the best available care.

By contrast, Mendus’ ADVANCE II study, with a median follow-up of 41.8 months, has yet to reach the median RFS for patients with MRD treated with vididencel. While precise figures have not yet been determined, the data clearly indicates superior results compared to Quazar AML-001, as most patients remain alive at the latest follow-up.

As with any study comparisons, caution is required due to differences in patient inclusion criteria, dosing regimens, and study design. It is also common for smaller biopharma companies to evaluate a drug candidate with a single treatment arm, as seen in the ADVANCE II study.

The plateau observed in the survival curve, typical of immunotherapy, reflects the immune system achieving active disease control. This has been confirmed by immunological analyses performed in the ADVANCE II study.

As of the end of Q3, Mendus had cash reserves of SEK 109 million, sufficient to fund operations for approximately one year.

https://www.placera.se/placera/telegram/2024/12/09/mendus-aptit-for-partneravtal-forsiktighet-infor-beslut-vd.html

Hey everyone -- I was laid off about 5 months ago, job hunt is going pretty poorly, and I am still left with a bad taste in my mouth from the place I was let go from. The place was an incredibly toxic, small biotech company in Greater Philadelphia.

I am looking for some closure. I find myself sadly dwelling on the situation how it ended the way it did. Should I leave a Glassdoor review of my experience? I signed termination agreement that included a non-disparaging clause. I care about the staff working there, but owner/upper-management made my life a living hell. Basically asking how to navigate this and would love any advice.

This might be a little different from the usual post: I'm an associate creative director working at an advertising agency. I have five years of experience working mostly for big pharma clients--making websites, sales detailers and presentations, and commercials. Are there similar roles at biotech firms, or roles that might use these skills? I'm just thinking of how to transition out of pharma advertising into something with some more substance and stability.

I can't even get an interview. I usually tweak it to include job post wording etc, and I have 3 slightly different ones focused on different skills (more on computational, cell work, or neuroscience depending on the job).

Based in Boston MA.

I appreciate any insights, don't hold back.

https://preview.redd.it/dks9dngybw5e1.png?width=704&format=png&auto=webp&s=766254a15d59198a0cea6f841fbb7a58953bea8a

I’m a postdoc in computational biology, nearing the end of my third year. Various reasons have led me to recognize that a hands-on science role isn't the best fit for me. I’m now exploring research-adjacent opportunities, such as scientific program manager or technical product manager.

If you’ve transitioned from a postdoc into a research-adjacent role, I’d love to hear about your experiences, advice, or resources that helped you make the move.

So i keep going back and forth on how to interpret strands and how reverse complement reorients strands. Some videos online show that when making a reverse complement you take your sequence 5-sequence-3 and find its complement. When doing this you get 3-complement-5 orientation, hence to take the reverse complement you then need to reverse this so you get 5-complement-3. Now this makes sense.

However, other sources says that if you ahve a gene then the reverse complement is the complement on the antisense strand aka. the minus strand.

This does not align with the other reverse complement description, as the antisense only represents the 3-complement-5 strand.

Hey guys, in case you’re a Viatris investor and you missed it, they recently released their financial report with $3.8B in revenue. Strong numbers, but they’ve still underperformed the market this year. Hopefully, they will finally move past the Mylan merger mess from a few years back.

For newbies, back in 2020, Viatris merged with Mylan. During this process, Viatris issued 560M more shares to distribute among Mylan's investors. But then Viatris was accused of “misleading” about their Registration statement, which hid their not-so-good business in China due to their political situation and faced high competition in Japan.

When all this came to light, they lost almost $1B in value from the offering price. But the good news is that they already agreed to pay a $16M settlement to resolve this situation. And, they´re accepting late claims. So, if someone's late, you can still file for it.

Anyway, what are your bets on it in the near future? Did anybody here invest in these companies? And how bad were your losses if so?

Hey everyone!

I’m trying to get a better idea of what people actually think about Benchling. I’ve seen some mixed reviews here, especially around pricing being crazy high or that quality has been declining for a while.

If you use it, what’s the stuff you love about it? Like, the features that really make your life easier? And what’s the stuff that drives you crazy or makes you think twice about using it?

Would love to get your input—whether it’s about features, pricing, or just the overall experience.

I'm trying to understand if there is space to improve significantly an aspect of it and create a new "single use" but much better tool.

Thanks :)

4 Years of experience, 1 in healthcare lab, 3 within pharma. Finally going full time after almost 1.5 years of contracting with the same client.

I know contracts typically pay more, though I never got bonuses or raises during this time for obvious reasons, so same pay this whole time without benefits, vacation, etc.

Working in the biopharma hub of Boston, MA if that helps.

How much should I ask for salary-wise in relation to my current pay rate via my contracting company? ($50/hr)

In the past few weeks I was in the interview process for an entry level job at a medium sized biotech. Everything went smoothly until last week, when the position I interviewed for stopped being reposted on LinkedIn. The company instead posted a new position with almost the same JD as the old one, except a higher level title and requirement for years of experience. I emailed the HR asking where I was in the process but got no response. I know I'm screwed now but still curious what this kind of title changing could possibly mean. Is it a sign of hiring freeze, reorganization or something similar?

Edit: When I log onto the Workday page now, the old position still says I'm "In review", not "completed" nor "not selected".

Bad news for BioAge labs as they make a strategic decision to discontinue their phase II study.

With this, they are down to one disclosed asset: NLRP3 inhibitors (IND-enabling).

I think layoff would be in the horizon soon (just a prognostication)

https://www.biospace.com/drug-development/bioage-crashes-after-axing-phase-ii-obesity-study

Does anyone know of any firms that specialize in helping and writing grants for early stage startups?

I am very confused and conflicted right now. I currently am working as a CRC at MGH in a field that I am very interested in. I just started this job maybe a month or two ago. I want to pursue clinical research but a management role like CTM or potentially PM at a pharma/biotech company. I have little to no benchwork experience but a LOT of clinical experience. I got a decision letter to complete my MS in biotechnology. But after reading so many threads I’m so confused.

1. Would it make sense for me to do biotech master’s or should I do another program for PM?

2. Will I need benchwork experience to become a PM or will having enough clinical research experience be okay?

3. Also, I’ve been reading a lot of threads that say “don’t get biotech masters just get industry experience”, is my hospital CRC experience good enough to become a PM and oversee projects and drug development?

4. I need someone who was a CRC and now a PM with a biotech MS let me know it’s worth it and I’m on the right path. (Even though I know every path is different)

What are some of the most highest paying job roles in the Biotechnology domain, for building a big capital in the early career years?

Hi all, hope you are doing good. This is a question for PhD scientists with discovery background who moved on to other roles. What/ how did you do after the early research roles? Are you happier now? Would you recommend similar path to new early career individuals or are there better paths?

I love my work but there’s a time cap on how many years I can do the same/ similar without looking for newer pastures. I’m not necessarily looking for most exciting or different things. I want to find paths that have good career progression without fully dissociating from scientist roles. More work-from-home or hybrid work friendly roles would be nice.

If anyone in here works at Vertex would you know a good name I should follow up with/connect with to talk about my application, it would be greatly appreciated!

Sometimes I look back and suddenly balk at the idea that 2015 is soon to be a decade ago. That got me thinking what advances across our industry seemed cutting edge back then are now a formality or even considered yesterday’s news?

So I’m 21 and a junior. I am pre-PA, but I don’t really like people contact so I’m worried about that. I’m thinking of going into biotech after taking a molecular biology course. I got really into it and even started forming my own ideas that I would think is fun to research. The only problem is, I don’t really have any lab/research experience. I worked as a lab technician at a water testing facility for a year, and a vet tech for a year. There is a biotech company 30 minutes from my house that I’m planning on reaching out to (its finals week so my main priority is finishing the semester).

My friend told me about REUs, but after dealing with cancer for the first two years of my college experience, I don’t have the most reliable record. I also don’t have the means to travel (it’s complicated). I go to a small private liberal arts college on an almost full scholarship, but there are only two professors who specialise what I want to do. I tried asking my one professor, but he shut that down fast. It’s not a research school so that gets difficult. I would go to a research school, but it’s more expensive and I can’t afford it. How did you guys get in the field?

Hi,

During this layoff I've been considering trying freelancing and consulting. I love writing so have been focusing on that. I've a Ph.D. in life sciences, 3.5 years postdoctoral experience, and 4 years industry experience.

The job scope is to write a life sciences review article (with references and submission) of no less that 3,000 words for $350. I thought that was shockingly low. Does anyone have experience with this type of work to help me? Honestly, I was thinking closer the 10x that! The research alone would be worth more than $350 nevermind the writing, formatting, copy editing and journal submission process.

It's hard to know what the standard price is out there to charge when you don't know anyone in consulting so please let me know your thoughts 😊

Thanks!