Six of six critically ill COVID-19 patients survived after being treated as compassionate care cases with Capricor Therapeutics Inc.’s lead candidate, an off-the-shelf cardiac cell therapy. The success prompted the FDA to review the data and approve the company’s expanded access protocol for treating as many as 20 more COVID-19 patients.
A pair of good-news items from Chimerix Inc. pushed the Durham, N.C.-based company’s stock (NASDAQ:CMRX) to $2.15, closing up 64 cents, or 42%, higher as backers reacted to near-term NDA plans for smallpox countermeasure brincidofovir (BCV) and the start of a phase II/III trial with dociparstat sodium (DSTAT) in COVID-19 patients with acute lung injury (ALI).
PERTH, Australia – Roughly 40% of Australia’s biotech companies are seeking capital as they feel the pinch from international travel bans that seriously hamper capital raising, according to a recent Ausbiotech survey.
HONG KONG – Israeli biopharma Redhill Biopharma Ltd. is looking to extend access to its new investigational drug, opaganib (Yeliva, ABC-294640), following the drug’s initial success from a compassionate-use study treating six patients in Israel hospitalized with moderate to severe COVID-19 symptoms.
LONDON – The U.K. has started a fast track national trial of experimental drugs in COVID-19 patients, with Bergenbio ASA’s phase II cancer immunotherapy, bemcentinib, the first of six products that are due to join the study.
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Biontech, Cadent, Chimerix, Corbus, Destiny, Dynavax, Erytech, Geneone, Gilead, Gracell, Inovio, Pfizer, United Therapeutics, Windtree.
The Trump administration has posted an update to its plan to reopen the U.S. economy, this time with a slightly different twist on testing. This plan not only calls on local governments to administer tests for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, but also calls for two antibody tests per person under some circumstances, an approach that should beef up both the positive and negative predictive values compared to a single antibody test.
Reports of unusually high death rates for COVID-19 patients on ventilators have raised alarms, and some doctors are looking to reduce reliance on the breathing machines when possible. To advance that goal, Lungpacer Medical Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, has obtained an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the U.S. FDA for its Lungpacer diaphragmatic pacing therapy system (DPTS) for immediate use in ventilator patients at high risk of weaning failure, including patients with the novel coronavirus.
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