Multinational pharma companies like Moderna Inc. and Sanofi SA are setting up mRNA R&D centers in Australia and are banking on the country’s decades of mRNA expertise to bring new therapeutics to the clinic and to serve as regional hubs in Asia Pacific, speakers said during the Ausbiotech 2023 conference held Nov 1-3 in Brisbane, Australia.
What’s it going to take for Australia’s biotech industry to be more self-sufficient? Although Australia is far away from the rest of the world, no one is an island when it comes to biotechnology, Ausbiotech CEO Lorraine Chiroiu said during the Ausbiotech 2023 conference held in Brisbane Nov. 1-3. Investors gathered to riff about what they were looking for in Australian biotech investments and what needs to change for the sector to be sustainable. All agreed that the science in Australia is top-notch but that the ecosystem needs more investment to be competitive.
Among the avalanche of abstracts for the upcoming American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual conference released early on Nov. 2 were data from Arcellx Inc.’s phase I study of CART-ddBCMA in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. The results caught investors’ attention as the company’s stock (NASDAQ:ACLX) jumped 18.5% upward to close at $40.77 per share.
Australia has a lot to celebrate when it comes to vaccines. The University of Queensland is where Ian Frazer invented the human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil, and now Australia is projected to be the first in the word to eliminate cervical cancer, Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles said during the Ausbiotech 2023 conference held Nov. 1-3 in Brisbane, Australia.
At the 30th Annual Congress of the European Society for Gene and Cell Therapy in Brussels this week, researchers presented both preclinical and clinical strategies for applying gene therapy to a functional HIV cure. At a Wednesday session on Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, Alessio Nahmad, of Tabby Therapeutics Ltd., described using B cells edited to express broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) 3BNC117 to deliver high titers of antibodies in mice.
The Congress of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) held in Madrid from Oct. 20 to 24, 2023, could well add the letter W to its acronym after the four sessions on gynecological cancer that could represent a milestone in the lives of all women who suffer from cervical, ovarian, or endometrial cancer.
Novartis AG’s radioligand therapy, Pluvicto, a bestseller for the company that has been restructuring itself, continues to show strong growth in the third quarter of 2023, according to its most recent financial results. Sales were up 217% from the same quarter in 2022 at $256 million. Analysts are predicting blockbuster sales. Adding to the momentum were new data from the phase III PSMAfore study of Pluvicto (lutetium [177Lu] vipivotide tetraxetan), in second-line cancer, hitting its primary endpoint of radiographic progression-free survival in treating prostate-specific membrane antigen-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer after treatment with androgen receptor pathway inhibitor therapy.
Immutep Ltd.’s lead candidate, eftilagimod (IMP-321, efti), a lymphocyte activation gene-3 (LAG-3) fusion protein and major histocompatibility complex class II agonist, delivered an overall survival benefit of 35.5 months in the TACTI-002 trial that combined efti with Merck & Co. Inc.’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) as first-line treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at two years follow-up.
Harpoon Therapeutics Inc. provided updated interim monotherapy data from 71 patients in its phase I/II trial testing HPN-328 in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) and other neuroendocrine tumor types in a poster at the European Society of Medical Oncology Congress (ESMO). Wall Street immediately began comparing the compound, which takes aim at delta-like ligand 3 (DLL3) with a similar prospect from Amgen Inc. that recently yielded promising results.
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