Beigene Co. Ltd., of Beijing, received a $5 million milestone in the company's collaboration with Merck Serono, the biopharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA, of Darmstadt, Germany, for BGB-283, a second-generation BRAF inhibitor candidate currently in phase I development. The milestone triggers a $5 million payment from Merck to Beigene.

Last Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced the first U.S. case of Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection. The patient had returned from Saudi Arabia on April 24, first fell ill in Indiana on April 27 and was hospitalized on April 28.

Two independent teams of scientists, one from the Chinese Tsinghua University and one from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the University of North Carolina, have identified antibodies to the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) that may form the basis of prophylactic or therapeutic treatments against the virus.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM-SOM) and Novavax Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., said an investigational vaccine candidate developed by Novavax against the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) blocked infection in laboratory studies.

Genervon Biopharmaceuticals Inc., of Pasadena, Calif., said the FDA granted orphan drug status to GM604 (also known as GM6) to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

In Fragile X syndrome, excessive repeats of a three-nucleotide sequence leads to epigenetic silencing of the gene containing those repeats, the fragile X mental retardation protein FMRP1.

HONG KONG – A collaborative team from Hong Kong and mainland China has discovered an antiviral peptide that is a promising candidate for treating patients infected with the emergent Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus, for which there are currently no effective treatments.

Researchers from the University of Minnesota have demonstrated that even in patients with undetectable levels of HIV in their blood – which is the goal and the usual consequence of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) – the virus persists in replicating in the lymph system.

• Galapagos NV, of Mechelen, Belgium, said its Biofocus subsidiary signed a new collaboration agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, of Ingelheim, Germany, to apply its drug discovery services to an undisclosed target within Boehringer’s drug discovery portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed.