👋 Hey, let’s get into it. Researchers asked AI to write complete viral genomes, built nearly 300 in the lab, and found 16 that worked. These were bacteriophages that infect bacteria, not people, which is worth clarifying before anyone starts shopping for an apocalypse bunker.

This is more than AI tweaking a protein. The models designed entire genomes that replicated inside E. coli, while cocktails of the generated phages overcame bacterial resistance in lab tests. The early work could eventually help scientists develop therapies against antibiotic-resistant infections.

AI finally wrote code that compiled. The code just happened to be DNA.

Programming note: BioNucleus will take a short break beginning August 13, but we’ll be back with a new edition on August 25.

🏭 BMS Picks Houston for $2.3B Manufacturing Campus
Bristol Myers Squibb selected Houston’s Generation Park for a planned $2.3 billion manufacturing campus capable of producing small molecules, biologics, and antibody-drug conjugates. The modular, 600,000-square-foot site is expected to create nearly 500 permanent jobs and support products from late-stage development through commercial launch. Construction and related work will run from 2027 through 2030, so no medicines are rolling off the line yet. The project sits inside BMS’s existing $40 billion U.S. investment pledge. Houston, we have a manufacturing campus.

💰 Jazz Pays $820M Upfront for Actio’s Rare Epilepsy Drug
Jazz Pharmaceuticals will acquire Actio Biosciences for $820 million upfront and up to $500 million more, valuing the deal at a possible $1.32 billion. The prize is ABS-1230, an oral inhibitor targeting the faulty KCNT1 ion channel behind a devastating childhood epilepsy that affects roughly 2,500 people in the U.S. Early Phase 1b/2 findings showed seizure reductions in a small number of children, and Jazz believes the trial could potentially support registration. That is not an FDA agreement, but it explains the math: tiny population, very large check. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

💉 FDA Approves Moderna’s First mRNA Flu Vaccine After Bumpy Review
Moderna’s mFLUSIVA became the first FDA-approved mRNA flu vaccine, clearing for adults 50 and older after a regulatory review that took the scenic route. Traditional approval for ages 50 to 64 leaned on a Phase 3 trial in adults 50 and older showing 26.6% relative vaccine efficacy versus a standard-dose flu shot. For adults 65 and older, the FDA used accelerated approval based largely on immune responses and required Moderna to verify effectiveness in a roughly 800,000-person postmarket study. mRNA’s post-COVID résumé just added a recurring seasonal gig.

🦠 Replimune Wins FDA Approval for Melanoma Virus on Its Third Try
Third time’s the charm for Replimune. The FDA granted accelerated approval to Tudriqev, an engineered herpes virus injected into tumors, in combination with Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo for unresectable advanced melanoma that progressed after PD-1 treatment. In the single-arm IGNYTE study, 24.2% of evaluable patients responded, with responses lasting a median 14.1 months. The approval gives Replimune its first commercial product after two earlier rejections, but survival benefit remains unproven. A confirmatory Phase 3 trial must now verify the clinical benefit.

😴 Takeda’s Orzeyful Becomes First Drug to Treat Narcolepsy at Its Source
Takeda won FDA approval for Orzeyful (oveporexton), the first orexin receptor 2 agonist for adults with narcolepsy type 1. Existing medicines mainly manage downstream symptoms. Orzeyful directly activates the signaling pathway weakened by the loss of orexin-producing neurons, improving wakefulness, cataplexy, sleepiness, and quality of life in two Phase 3 studies. It does not restore those neurons or cure the disease, and insomnia was common, reaching 60% at the higher dose. Launch must wait for DEA scheduling, expected within 90 days. The brain’s missing on-switch now has a prescription.

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☁️ Novo Nordisk and AWS Open a London AI Drug-Discovery Hub
Novo named AWS its preferred cloud and AI partner and opened a London hub to apply agentic tools across drug discovery.

🧬 HuidaGene Publicly Discloses a Child’s Death Nearly a Year Later
A child died from acute respiratory distress after severe complement and cytokine activation in HuidaGene’s now-ended high-dose AAV-CRISPR Duchenne trial.

🫁 Sionna’s CF Add-On Miss Sends Its Stock Down 90%
SION-719 barely moved sweat chloride in a Trikafta add-on study, missing its Phase 2a target and erasing about 90% of Sionna’s value.

👁️ Tarsus Pays Up to $800M for a Stargardt Disease Bet
Tarsus will pay $450 million upfront and up to $800 million total for Alkeus and its Phase 3 Stargardt disease drug.

🏛️ Senate Confirms Erica Schwartz as CDC Director
The Senate confirmed Erica Schwartz as CDC director in a 51-to-44 vote, giving the strained public-health agency its first permanent leader in nearly a year.

💰 Sobi Pays Up to $580M for Innate’s T-Cell Lymphoma Drug
Sobi will pay $75 million upfront and up to $580 million total for Innate’s Phase 3 cutaneous T-cell lymphoma antibody lacutamab.

🔥 One AbCellera Dose Cuts Hot Flashes by 8.8 Events Per Day
One ABCL635 dose cut daily hot flashes by 8.8 versus 3.5 with placebo. AbCellera shares had their own hot flash, soaring 41%.

Three biotechs walked onto Nasdaq in two days and left with a combined $878.1 million. Braveheart Bio, Latigo Biotherapeutics, and BlossomHill Therapeutics all upsized their offerings, making the trio a stronger sign of investor demand than one company having a very good morning.

Braveheart led the charge, selling 21.25 million shares at $18, above its marketed range, for $382.5 million. The company is developing BHB-1893, an oral cardiac myosin inhibitor for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a market already validated by Bristol Myers Squibb’s Camzyos. Shares closed their first trading day at $29.80, up 65.6%, and underwriters later exercised their full option.

Latigo raised $345.6 million for LTG-001, an oral Nav1.8 inhibitor pursuing non-opioid pain relief in a category recently validated by Vertex’s Journavx. A Phase 2b abdominoplasty trial showed statistically significant pain reductions, and roughly $124.7 million will fund Phase 3 development and launch preparation. BlossomHill raised another $150 million for BH-30643, a pan-EGFR inhibitor in Phase 1/2 testing for EGFR-mutant lung cancer.

What makes this mini-boom especially interesting is what investors bought. These were cardiovascular, pain, and conventional oncology programs, not AI drug-discovery platforms, ADC plays, or whatever acronym is currently collecting term sheets. That suggests public investors may be rewarding understandable mechanisms and clinical progress, not merely chasing biotech’s loudest trends.

It is still a selective reopening, and upsized offerings prove demand, not efficacy. But nearly $1 billion reached three very different drug developers in 48 hours. Wall Street has not fallen back in love with biotech, but it may be answering its texts again.

That is the number of confirmed cases in Congo’s Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak through August 7, making it the largest Ebola outbreak ever reported in DRC. It has killed 1,916 people across 53 health zones in five provinces. Unlike Zaire ebolavirus, Bundibugyo has no licensed vaccine or specific treatment.

Here’s what biotech Redditors are talking about:

💵 What Does 30 Years in Biotech Pay?
A Reddit thread asked longtime biotech and pharma workers to compare their first paycheck with their current compensation. Responses ranged from early salaries in the tens of thousands to $400,000-plus packages, although those outliers often included bonuses and equity. More common manager and director figures clustered around $175,000 to $200,000. These were anonymous anecdotes, not salary data, but the recurring advice was clear: change companies, enter management, negotiate equity, and wait.

🤖 Reddit Thinks the AI-Virus Panic Is Overcooked
Remember those AI-designed bacteriophages from today’s opener? Biotech Redditors had little patience for headlines implying researchers had built the next pandemic. Commenters noted that scientists have engineered viruses for decades and that designing bacteria-infecting phages remains far from creating a human pathogen and deploying it. Others warned that easier genome design could eventually lower barriers to misuse. The real advance was generating complete viral genomes at scale. The science moved forward. Some headlines skipped straight to the apocalypse.

💩 Poop Pills Raise Peanut Tolerance in Tiny Trial
Six of 15 adults with peanut allergies swallowed capsules containing donor fecal microbiota and tolerated more peanut protein…I really hope I get the placebo.

🐶 CRISPR Creates Beagles Without a Major Dog Allergen
Good news for dog lovers: CRISPR and cloning produced two healthy beagles without Can f 1, a major dog allergen.

⚠️ Morphine Syringes Recalled for Labeling Mix-Up
One Fresenius Kabi lot labeled as morphine may contain hydromorphone, a more potent opioid. Definitely not a “close enough” situation.

🍄 LifeMine Raises $263M for a Drug Found in Fungi
LifeMine Therapeutics raised $263 million across two rounds to advance LIFE-001, a long-acting injectable immunosuppressant discovered by mining fungal genomes. Unlike tacrolimus and cyclosporine, it directly inhibits calcineurin without binding immunophilins, a design intended to reduce kidney, metabolic, and cardiovascular toxicity. More than 120 Phase 1 participants have received it, but company-reported safety remains preliminary and transplant efficacy is unproven. Kidney- and islet-transplant studies are expected to begin in early 2027. Drug discovery went mushroom hunting and returned with $263 million.

🐓 August 11, 1858: A Vitamin Pioneer and Chicken Whisperer Is Born
Christiaan Eijkman was born in the Netherlands on this day in 1858, decades before a flock of chickens helped make him famous. While working in Java, he noticed that birds fed polished white rice developed paralysis, while those switched to unpolished rice recovered. The observation helped scientists connect beriberi to a missing nutrient in rice bran, later identified as thiamine, or vitamin B1. Eijkman shared the 1929 Nobel Prize. The chickens got leftover rice and absolutely no credit.

Thinking back to the poop-pill story in BioBits: if this treatment ever makes it to market, scientists will deserve credit for proving it works. But getting people to willingly swallow capsules filled with donor fecal microbiota? That commercial miracle will belong to the marketers tasked with branding it. I can’t wait to see what they come up with. Perhaps Poopé? 💩

And with that, we can finally check the “use a poop emoji in a B2B newsletter” box on the BioNucleus bingo card.

Don’t forget, BioNucleus is taking a short summer break, but we’ll be back on August 25 with a new edition.

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