The busy Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) space took another hit as did shares of Aardvark Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:AARD), which closed March 2 at $5.47, down $7.02, or 56%, after the company disclosed a voluntary pause of the phase III Hunger Elimination or Reduction Objective (HERO) trial testing ARD-101 as a treatment for hyperphagia, or intense hunger, in patients with the disease.
Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd. has acquired an exclusive license for a preclinical small-molecule program from Sitryx Therapeutics Ltd. The program offers a novel oral immunometabolic approach to modulating disease-driving immune cells with potential for multiple autoimmune and inflammatory disease indications.
The psychedelic and psychedelic-like drug space made another stride as Ataibeckley Inc. disclosed positive top-line data from a double‑blind, placebo‑controlled, first-in-patient phase IIa study testing oral R-MDMA therapy EMP‑01 in adults with social anxiety disorder (SAD).
In an all-cash transaction valued at €780 million (US$920 million), Asahi Kasei Corp. offered to buy Aicuris Anti-infective Cures AG, expanding its infectious disease portfolio with a marketed cytomegalovirus product and a herpes treatment nearing an NDA.
United Therapeutics Corp.’s founder, chairman and CEO Martine Rothblatt disclosed during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Feb. 25 the “unsheathing of a category killer product” known as Tresmi, a drug-device formulation of treprostinil delivered via a soft mist inhaler.
Ascletis Pharma Inc. raised HK$843.53 million (US107.93 million) in a placement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to advance its lead program, ASC-30, a small-molecule glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist that can be dosed once monthly subcutaneously and once daily orally for treating obesity.
The U.S. FDA accepted, with priority review, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.’s NDA submission for oveporexton (TAK-681), bringing the oral orexin receptor 2 agonist closer to clearance in narcolepsy type 1.
After closing an oversubscribed $85 million series B round, Quantx Biosciences Inc. is gearing up to begin clinical trials of its two lead immunology compounds, a STAT6 oral small-molecule inhibitor and an IL-17 oral small-molecule inhibitor.
An “outsized placebo response” is not stopping Gossamer Bio Inc. from seeking a path to potential approval of inhaled tyrosine kinase inhibitor seralutinib in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), but the missed primary endpoint in the phase III Prosera study sent shares of the company (NASDAQ:GOSS) tumbling 80% and left investors skeptical going forward.
Antibiotics specialist Bioversys AG has reported the first clinical proof-of-concept data for alpibectir (BVL-GSK098) in combination with ethionamide in pulmonary tuberculosis, with phase IIa early bactericidal activity data published in the New England Journal of Medicine.