UK-based Ochre Bio has signed its first major deal with Boehringer Ingelheim. Scrip talked to its co-founder and CEO, Jack O’Meara, about its human tissue-based drug discovery platform, its resulting RNA platform for liver disease and how the fledgling drug company's early work mirrored that seen in diagnostics.

The fifth annual listing of In Vivo’s Rising Leaders includes entrepreneurs and innovators from across the world who represent the next wave of creativity in health care.

CTMC CEO Jason Bock talked to Scrip about the venture between MD Anderson and National Resilience, which provides manufacturing, process development and regulatory support for small cell therapy developers’ preclinical and clinical proof-of-concept studies. Meanwhile, Verge Genomics initiated a Phase Ib study of its AI-discovered drug for ALS; EyePoint and Aviceda dosed patients in their Phase II DME trials; Parexel teamed up with a non-profit cancer research group in Japan; and BARDA selected PPD to run its Phase II platform trial for ARDS.

Deal Snapshot: The Danish drug maker plans to pay up to $2.7bn to Flagship Pioneering-incubated Valo Health for its AI-enabled small molecule discovery and human genetic data platform.