LONDON – Six weeks on from the initial alert, “the window of opportunity” to control the COVID-19 epidemic is “narrowing,” according to the latest assessment from World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
HONG KONG – Beijing-headquartered Canbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc. has completed a $98 million series D financing round to target rare genetic diseases in China, and is considering an IPO after several rounds of financing to further pursue its goal.
BEIJING – Chinese biosimilar maker Bio-Thera Solutions Ltd., of Guangzhou, on Feb. 21 launched a pre-revenue listing on Shanghai’s STAR market, a Nasdaq-style tech board, to reap $241 million at a valuation of almost $2 billion. Its share price soared more than 83% during its first trading day.
BEIJING – Multiple China-based clinical trials have been put on hold as the country concentrates on its fight against COVID-19. To curb the spread of the novel coronavirus that has infected over 72,000 people and killed nearly 2,000, China has imposed travel and transport restrictions, making trips difficult or even impossible for patients and physicians.
The latest mutation to the coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, has sparked a reaction by many national governments, but the expense associated with development of vaccines and diagnostics is considerable.
BOGOTA, Colombia – Medical supply manufacturers in Argentina have seen a surge in demand for their products from China, which is reaching out globally for the goods it needs to deal with the outbreak of COVID-19.
The latest mutation to the coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, has sparked a reaction by many national governments, but the expense associated with development of vaccines and diagnostics is considerable. Ron Klain, who served as the Obama administration’s coordinator for the response to the Ebola virus, said during an Aspen Institute seminar that drug makers took a hit in their efforts to develop a vaccine for the Ebola virus, and thus there is a need to de-risk these and other development efforts in the private sector.
A half-day open meeting intended to examine “how the public perceives and values pharmaceutical quality,” convened by the Robert J. Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University in cooperation with the FDA, included a rundown of the agency’s oversight program, results of surveys to measure viewpoints of patients and providers – and tart commentary from a two-member “reactant panel.”
The drug screens prompted by the SARS and MERS outbreaks have been useful for quickly identifying drug candidates. But in terms of their epidemiology, “SARS and MERS were different from this coronavirus,” Allison McGeer explained at a Feb. 3 webinar by Evercore ISI.
BEIJING – Share prices of Chinese biotechs that partner with Gilead Science Inc. have surged in China this week, after the U.S. firm’s remdesivir was identified as the most promising drug candidate to treat 2019-nCoV.
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