Pricing won’t be known until later for Pfizer Inc.’s Zavzpret (zavegepant), which became the first and only calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonist nasal spray approved by the U.S. FDA for acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. The product is slated to launch this summer. Meanwhile, Wall Street has questions about New York-based Pfizer’s performance in the migraine space.
Quralis Inc. raised $88 million in series B round to fund clinical development of its two lead programs in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and to take forward earlier-stage pipeline projects in ALS and frontotemporal dementia.
Bionomics Ltd. is gearing up for an end-of-phase-II meeting with the U.S. FDA later this year to discuss the full results from the phase II study called Prevail in social anxiety disorder (SAD) with BNC-210, which missed its primary endpoint but yielded encouraging signs. Top-line data were disclosed last December. An oral alpha-7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor negative allosteric modulator, BNC-210 fell short in change from baseline to the average of the Subjective Unites of Distress Scale (SUDS) during a five-minute public speaking challenge.
Marking the latest Alzheimer’s disease (AD) disappointment, Eli Lilly and Co.’s solanezumab failed in a phase III trial to slow progression of cognitive decline in patients at the preclinical stage of the disease – those with amyloid plaque but no clinical symptoms – prompting the company to terminate development. The Indianapolis-based company is turning its attention instead to phase III AD products donanemab and remternetug.
Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) has been implicated in the pathogenesis of several neurological disorders, such as multiple sclerosis (MS). Its transmembrane form activates the type II tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR2), functioning via cell-to-cell contact. In contrast, its soluble form activates TNFR1; studies in animal models have evidenced TNFR1 to activate neurotoxic pathways, while TNFR2 activation pathways may have protective effects within the central nervous system due to activation of reparative mechanisms.
The 16p11.2 duplication is a copy number variant that has been previously identified to confer risk for diverse neuropsychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, intellectual disability and epilepsy. Researchers from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine aimed to assess disease networks associated with this broad phenotypic spectrum.
Scientists from Washington University in St. Louis have described a role for T cells in the neurodegeneration associated with the tau protein. Tau accumulation in the brain activated microglia. This signal triggered the activation of T cells in other parts of the body, attracting them to the brain. Once there, the interaction of these T cells and microglia produced the neuronal damage seen in Alzheimer’s disease and other tauopathies.
The U.S. Recover program, set up in July 2022 to identify the causes of long COVID, find biomarkers of disease and discover new therapeutic targets, is now preparing to move to its next phase and begin testing potential treatments in a multi-arm, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. But with 200 different symptoms, and limited understanding of relevant system-level pathological targets, there are significant hurdles to be overcome.
Massachusetts General Hospital and University of California Oakland have described 15-lipoxygenase (LOX) inhibitors reported to be useful for the treatment of stroke, among others.
Researchers have linked Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) to a loss of regenerative capacity of muscle stem cells. The findings, which were published in the March 1, 2023, issue of Science Translational Medicine, suggest that boosting the regenerative capacity of muscle stem cells could delay or perhaps even prevent the progression of DMD. DMD is “an early and horrible disease,” senior author Frederic Relaix, who is the director of a research team studying the biology of the neuromuscular system at the Mondor Institute for Biomedical Research told BioWorld.
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