Clinical programs, orbital screening and battery production

1. Kodiak reports pivotal retinal trial results with AI-guided retreatment¹

Kodiak Sciences says both Zenkuda and tabirafusp ted met the primary vision endpoint in its DAYBREAK phase 3 study against aflibercept. The company describes an AI-guided retreatment algorithm within a demanding fluid-control protocol. That makes the result relevant to how treatment schedules are operationalized, although the announcement does not isolate the algorithm’s contribution. Kodiak reports noninferiority in vision at one year, rather than superiority, and plans a regulatory filing. These are company-reported topline findings; they neither establish independent validation of the AI component nor mean the products have received marketing approval.¹

2. Two more missions expand planned orbital drug screening²

Voyager Technologies and Exobiosphere announced two additional drug-screening campaigns aboard the International Space Station, scheduled for June and August–September 2027. Their automated platform is due for installation in April 2027 and is designed for repeated resupply. The companies describe standardized experiments paired with ground controls, producing data suitable for model training. The added bookings matter as a concrete expansion of access to automated experimental infrastructure across different research programs. They remain planned campaigns: the announcement does not report completed flights, validated predictive models or therapeutic results from the new missions.²

3. Nutshell reports clearance to start testing an AI-assisted degrader³

Nutshell Therapeutics announced FDA investigational-new-drug clearance for NTS231, an allosteric molecular glue intended to degrade NRF2. The company says its ALLOSTAR discovery platform combines AI, computational drug design, medicinal chemistry and experiments. The regulatory step moves a program associated with that workflow toward clinical testing, where tolerability and activity must be established in people. Nutshell describes preclinical antitumor findings and a mechanism involving KEAP1 and the degradation machinery; those remain company-reported evidence. IND clearance permits the proposed investigation to proceed and should not be read as marketing approval or proof of clinical benefit.³

4. SES reports a manufacturing quality milestone for AI-designed batteries⁴

SES AI announced that its Chungju battery facility received ISO 9001:2015 certification following an assessment of its quality-management processes. The company also reports a recent expansion to approximately one million pouch cells of annual production capacity. For materials-discovery readers, the development concerns manufacturing infrastructure supporting the company’s AI-enabled battery business, rather than a new prediction benchmark. The certification covers battery manufacture and battery-material research and development. It assesses a management system; it does not independently establish the performance of AI-designed materials, battery safety in every application, or actual production at the stated capacity.⁴

5. A planned orbital screening platform gains direct electrical readouts⁵

Exobiosphere and MaxWell Biosystems announced an exclusive agreement to integrate high-density microelectrode arrays into automated drug screening in microgravity. The companies plan direct measurements of neuronal and cardiac electrical activity during flight, adding functional readouts to imaging-based observations. That matters for assessing whether a compound changes cellular behavior and at what concentration. Exobiosphere still needs to qualify the system for flight and integrate it into its orbital platform. The September 21 announcement describes planned infrastructure, not completed in-orbit validation. It is a distinct instrumentation development from the subsequently announced additional research missions.⁵