A Billion-Dollar Deal, Trial Trouble, Biohub Updates, and Vaccine Research News

In this week’s episode, we start with news that Fulcrum Therapeutics is scrapping its lead pipeline program for sickle cell disease following concerns from the FDA about the drug’s risks and benefits. Also on the docket, news of Eli Lilly’s latest spending. The pharma giant has added its genetic medicines pipeline and capabilities by signing a $1.9 billion agreement with Ascidian Therapeutics to develop RNA exon editors for treating inherited kidney diseases. Next up, updates to an open-source model for binder design and protein function mapping. Finally, on the peer-review front, we dive into some of the latest vaccine research including insights into the mechanisms that cross-reactive T cells use to target multiple viral species in a single family and an improvement to standard polio vaccines.

Join GEN editors Corinna Singleman, PhD, Alex Philippidis, Fay Lin, PhD, and Uduak Thomas for a discussion of the latest biotech and biopharma news. 

Listed below are links to the GEN stories referenced in this episode of Touching Base: 

Fulcrum Halts Development of SCD Candidate Pociredir, Sets Strategic Review

By Alex Philippidis and Kevin Davies, PhD, GEN Edge, June 2, 2026

Lilly, Ascidian Launch Up-to-$1.9B RNA Exon Editor Collaboration Targeting Inherited Kidney Diseases

By Alex Philippidis, GEN Edge, June 3, 2026

Biohub Releases Protein Biology World Model to Address Disease

By Fay Lin, PhD, GEN Edge, May 27, 2026

Cross-Reactive T Cells Could Point to Broad Vaccines or Treatments for Measles, Nipah Virus

GEN, June 2, 2026

Experimental Adjuvant Could Strengthen Mucosal Immunity with Injectable Polio Vaccines 

GEN, June 4, 2026

Touching Base Podcast 

Hosted by Corinna Singleman, PhD 

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