Orna Therapeutics Inc., which is pioneering a novel circular RNA protein expression technology in several therapeutic areas, has achieved lift-off. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company has closed a broadly based alliance in infectious disease and oncology with Merck & Co. Inc., under which it is getting $150 million up front and up to $3.5 billion in development, regulatory and sales-based milestones. In addition, Merck, of Rahway, N.J., is investing another $100 million in Orna’s equity, as part of its $221 million series B round, which the company also disclosed on Aug. 16.
Metabrain Research and Shanghai Visonpharma have presented macrocyclic Toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) agonists reported to be useful for the treatment of hepatitis B virus (HBV), HCV, HIV and influenza virus infections, and cancer.
Scientists from the University Grenoble Alpes in France and colleagues have recently identified a promising drug candidate with broad-spectrum activity against apicomplexans using a drug repurposing strategy.
After declarations from the World Health Organization and the U.S. government that monkeypox is a public health emergency, attention is turning to the pharma industry’s response to the disease. Vaccines look likely to play a crucial role in controlling monkeypox – but could antivirals play a significant part as they did in the COVID-19 pandemic?
Vellore Institute of Technology University (VIT) and BG Negev Technologies and Applications have described new curcumin or piperine analogues acting as NF-kappaB (NFKB) activation inhibitors and/or quorum sensing signaling inhibitors reported to be useful for treatment of cancer, fungal and bacterial infections and inflammatory disorders.
Researchers around the world are making advances in understanding how HIV becomes latent and seeking out vulnerabilities that could provide routes to targeting reservoirs and eliminating them.
Tetra Bio-Pharma has announced new promising preclinical results with ARDS-003 (onternabez) from live SARS-CoV-2 virus infection studies, as well as a septic lung model, carried out by independent researchers.
Shionogi has reported that S-217622 (ensitrelvir fumaric acid), the company's orally administered antiviral drug for COVID-19, shows high in vitro antiviral activity against the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariant BA.2.75.
NanoViricides has outlined plans to develop NV-387-T for monkeypox virus. NV-387-T is made by encapsulating tecovirimat within NV-387 polymeric micelles.
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