From 20 years of research on metabolic change as a result of salt intake, Karen Duggan discovered in 2003 that a naturally occurring molecule in the human body, native vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), was capable of reversing fibrosis caused by hypertension and other chronic diseases such as diabetes. From that discovery, Vectus Biosystems Ltd. was founded, and the company has developed a new class of mimetic drug candidates and a drug library based on VIP.
Philadelphia’s Mineralys Therapeutics Inc. has secured a further $118 million to develop MLS-101, a potential hypertension drug in-licensed from Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp.
Luca Science Inc. has raised $30.3 million in an oversubscribed series B financing, enabling it to advance a mitochondria replacement therapy toward the clinic. The company is planning a phase Ib trial in myocardial infarction, in which 8 to 12 patients will receive injections of mitochondria immediately after having a heart attack.
Idorsia Ltd. looks on course to produce another marketed drug after supportive phase III results for its hypertension drug, aprocitentan. The company’s first U.S. FDA-approved drug, Quviviq (daridorexant), was launched in April and another product, Pivlaz (clazosentan), was approved and launched in April for cerebral vasospasm in Japan.
Keros Therapeutics Inc. announced preliminary results from a phase I trial of its engineered ligand trap KER-012 that gave its team confidence to proceed with larger studies in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and potentially some bone diseases. But company shares (NASDAQ:KROS) fell 16.6% to $38.50 May 18, following the announcement, perhaps over concerns about trial subjects that emerged in a company-hosted investor call.
Bristol Myers Squibb Co.’s audacious $13.1 billion 2020 takeover of Myokardia Inc. appears to have paid off with U.S. FDA approval of the drug at the heart of the deal, mavacamten. The medicine, a cardiac myosin inhibitor for treating adults with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM), will be marketed under the brand name Camzyos.
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Vivo Capital LLC have launched a joint venture named Visirna Therapeutics for RNA interference therapeutics in the greater China market. Arrowhead is the majority shareholder of the new entity, while Vivo invested $60 million in the new entity.
Forcefield Therapeutics Ltd. has arrived on the scene with £5.5 million (US$7 million) in funding to advance development of naturally occurring proteins that have been shown to arrest the loss of cardiomyocytes in the immediate aftermath of myocardial infarction.
Windtree Therapeutics Inc.’s positive top-line data from the phase II study called Seismic, testing istaroxime in cardiogenic shock (CS), a form of sudden heart failure (HF), add “a lot of interesting strategies and options” with the compound, also in development for acute HF, said CEO Craig Fraser.
Astrazeneca plc and Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. have unveiled some eye-catching figures from their cholesterol drug, AZD-8233, in a phase IIb trial, taking aim at the PCSK9 inhibitor market where Novartis AG, Sanofi SA/Regeneron Inc. and Amgen Inc. are vying for supremacy.
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