Historic Biotech IPO, Merck, Protillion’s AI Deal, Testing a Lassa–Rabies Vaccine

We are still talking about big pharma deals and biotech fundraising in this episode. The big news this week was Parabilis Medicines’s history-making IPO. We dive into the drug developer’s plans for the eye-popping $770.5 million that it raised. Next, we discuss the details of a collaboration between Merck and Protillion Biosciences to use artificial intelligence to discover multiple therapeutic candidates. Turning to some newly published research, we discuss the early results of a first-in-human clinical trial that is testing a dual vaccine against Lassa fever and rabies, a CRISPR system engineered to selectively trigger cancer cell death by chromatin shredding, and a novel mRNA delivery platform for delivering gene therapies starting with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Join GEN editors Corinna Singleman, PhD, Alex Philippidis, Uduak Thomas, and Fay Lin, PhD, 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:  StockWatch: Parabilis Medicines Makes Wall Street History with $770.5M IPOBy Alex Philippidis, GEN Edge, June 14, 2026Merck, Protillion Launch AI Drug Discovery Collaboration with Up-to-$510M in Milestone PaymentsBy Alex Philippidis, GEN Edge, June 16, 2026First-in-Human Trial Reports Promising Dual Lassa–Rabies Vaccine DataGEN, June 9, 2026CRISPR Shreds Undruggable Cancer Cells with PrecisionBy Fay Lin, PhD, GEN Edge, June 8, 2026New mRNA Delivery Platform Restores Muscle Function in DMD ModelsGEN, June 11, 2026Touching Base Podcast Hosted by Corinna Singleman, PhD  Behind the Breakthroughs Hosted by Jonathan D. Grinstein, PhD  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.