CAR T-cell therapies have worked well at curing blood malignancies, but a group out of the University Hospital of Erlangen have repurposed the technology as a treatment for autoimmune diseases. The expansion into new diseases has required cooperation between multiple departments, with CAR T experts taking the lead on treatment and potential side effects, and rheumatologists measuring the outcomes of the treatment.
Regenerative medicine company Mesoblast Ltd. plans to raise AU$97 million (US$64.5 million) to conduct additional phase III registration trials for its allogeneic stem cell treatment for steroid-refractory acute graft-vs.-host disease and for chronic back pain, as required by the U.S. FDA.
Seismic Therapeutic Inc. has closed a $121 million series B financing to support progression of the company’s two lead programs through clinical proof of mechanism.
Regenerative medicine company Mesoblast Ltd. plans to raise AU$97 million (US$64.5 million) to conduct additional phase III registration trials for its allogeneic stem cell treatment for steroid-refractory acute graft-vs.-host disease and for chronic back pain, as required by the U.S. FDA.
Ebviously GmbH, a spin-off from Helmholtz Munich (HMGU), has presented new in vitro data for its Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) vaccine candidate EBV-001. Based on noninfectious virus-like particles (VLPs) derived from EBV, EBV-001 is designed as a highly immunogenic, multiantigen vaccine to prevent EBV-associated diseases, such as infectious mononucleosis.
Pemphigus vulgaris is an autoimmune skin disease mediated by autoantibodies to desmoglein-3 (DSG3). Since the adult murine model of this disease is quite limited, researchers aimed to develop a novel active adult pemphigus vulgaris murine model.
Acelyrin Inc. said a vendor used by Fortrea Inc., a CRO the company used for its phase IIb/III study testing interleukin-17A inhibitor izokibep in psoriatic arthritis, incorrectly programmed the study’s protocol and created a dose sequencing error, resulting in some patients in two of the four dosing arms to randomly receive placebo and active treatment instead of the intended alternating pattern. The discovery has prompted a review of other studies involving the CRO, including a study that failed to reach statistical significance in September.
Inhibition of receptor-interacting serine/threonine-protein kinase 2 (RIPK2) has been previously described as a promising strategy for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, as RIPK2 is a key player in the signaling leading to bacterial peptidoglycan (PGN)-induced inflammation and it amplifies pro-inflammatory responses in the intestine.
Researchers from Abbvie Inc. have reported on the discovery and optimization of a series of selective tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) inhibitors that led to the identification of ABBV-712 as the lead compound.