Emerging Company Profile: The eight-year-old vaccine firm is planning clinical trials in the Philippines and Brazil to see how its synthetic viral peptide vaccine technology stands up against coronaviruses and dengue fever.

Astellas is building off an existing relationship with the biotech formed last August, joining the growing number of large pharmas looking at tackling solid tumors with cell therapy.

The drug maker said the program would allow for continued reimbursement when patients change insurance plans. A Sangamo-partnered gene therapy for hemophilia A is also in the works.

CEO Daniel O’Day highlighted Gilead’s large pipeline and relative safety from patent expirations over the next few years in the company’s Q1 earnings call.

The company is targeting around 200 centers that treat the vast majority of the few thousand pediatric low-grade glioma patients who are candidates for the RAF-targeting drug.

Execs Richard Adcock and Patrick Soon-Shiong told Scrip the company sees an addressable US population of about 20,000 and is aiming for ease of physician adoption.