It has been a bumpy rollercoaster ride for many biopharma companies throughout the pandemic, but overall, the 17 firms that make up BioWorld’s Infectious Disease Index are coming out ahead this year with stocks up by 44.8%.
Viiv Healthcare Group has continued its quest for patient-friendly long-acting HIV drugs, signing a potential $740 million deal with Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. to develop injections that could be dosed more than six months apart.
New phase III data on Novan Inc.'s molluscum contagiosum candidate showed it cleared all lesions associated with the highly contagious viral skin infection in 32.4% of trial participants who received it vs. 19.7% provided a placebo. Paired with what company President and CEO Paula Brown Stafford called "strong safety," the result gives the company's team confidence as it moves toward an NDA submission for the topical antiviral, SB-206, she said.
Following years of testing against a lengthy roster of viral foes, Chimerix Inc.'s Tembexa (brincidofovir) has finally won FDA approval as a medical countermeasure against smallpox.
Micurx Pharmaceuticals Inc. has won marketing approval from China's NMPA for its lead antibacterial, contezolid, for treating adults with complicated skin and soft tissue infection (cSSTI), marking the first NDA for the Shanghai drugmaker. Set to be marketed as Youxitai in China, Micurx discovered the new-generation oral oxazolidinone antibiotic, developing it over 12 years. It’s designed to treat multidrug-resistant gram-positive bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and vancomycin-resistant Enterococci.
Following a priority review, Scynexis Inc.'s oral antifungal, Brexafemme (ibrexafungerp), has won FDA approval for the treatment of vaginal yeast infections, also known as vulvovaginal candidiasis. The one-day oral treatment, which kills a broad range of Candida species, including azole-resistant strains, represents the first approved drug in a new antifungal class in more than 20 years as well as being Scynexis’ first commercial product.
LONDON – Pulmocide Ltd. has closed a $92 million oversubscribed series C, providing the means to take its inhaled antifungal drug, PC-945, through a global phase III registration study in invasive pulmonary aspergillosis.
New three-year safety and efficacy data on Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.'s dengue vaccine candidate, TAK-003, showed it to be 62% more effective than placebo in preventing virologically confirmed infections with the virus and 83.6% more effective than placebo in preventing hospitalizations caused by the mosquito-borne viral disease and due to any of the four dengue virus serotypes in patients ages 4 to 16.
In their latest submission to Science, Weifeng Shi, director and professor at the Institute of Pathogen Biology at Shandong First Medical University in China, and George Gao, head of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, have warned that “the global spread of H5N8 avian influenza viruses is a public health concern.”
Parasitic worms, or helminths, are a major global health issue. At the same time, "parasites have been a prolific area of biomedical research to emerge," De'Broski Herbert told his audience at the 2021 annual meeting of the American Association of Immunologists.
RSS
