LONDON – A pledge to “bottle” improvements made in setting up and running clinical trials during the pandemic has materialized in the formation of Protas Ltd., a nonprofit promising to stage large-scale phase III clinical trials in common diseases for less than one tenth the current cost. Protas will design and run randomized phase III studies of new and repurposed drugs in conditions including depression, dementia, heart, lung and respiratory conditions, arthritis and cancer.

Biopharma happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Anixa, Arrowhead, Dnovo, GSK, Molgenie, Neoimmunetech, Opthea, Respirerx.

Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Aslan, Clover, Opiant, Provention, UCB.

Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Seegene.

Administering multiple booster doses against COVID-19 is not sustainable in the longer term, international drug regulators said during a meeting of the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities, held Jan. 12. Regulators argued that a long-term strategy should involve vaccines capable of tackling several variants at once, not just omicron, and that tweaking existing vaccines and comparing them with first-generation vaccines using clinical studies is the way forward, according to a report from the meeting.

Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: AB Science, Amgen, AN2, Aptorum, Argenx, Beigene, Betterlife, Clairvoyant, Compass, Idorsia, Jeil, Marker, Novavax, Nuvation, Omeros, Opko, Palleon, Pfizer, Rockwell, Senhwa, Turning Point.

Biopharma happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Alzinova, MD Anderson, Orchard, Revivicor, Sorrento, Tevogen, Trisalus, United Therapeutics, Yingli.

Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Arecor, Biovie, Calcimedica, Elpiscience, Hinova, Hutchmed, Idorsia, Infant Bacterial, Intelgenx, Merck, Oncolytic, Revelation, Seres, Sorrento, Vigeo, Xilio, Zealand.