Shares in Cytokinetics Inc. closed down 42% Oct. 8 on news that omecamtiv mecarbil, a heart failure drug which it is developing with Amgen Inc. (with funding and strategic support from Les Laboratoires Servier SAS), failed to demonstrate a survival benefit in a large-scale cardiovascular outcomes study.
LONDON – Industry is calling on the government to set out a plan for the safe and sustainable restart of non-COVID-19 clinical studies that were put on hold when the pandemic struck.
PERTH, Australia – Astrazeneca plc is leasing 175 Sozo devices from Impedimed Ltd. and plans to put them in 20 countries to run phase II trials for a combination drug that looks at fluid imbalance in the human body in patients with heart failure (HF) and chronic kidney disease.
New data from a global phase II trial of Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals Ltd.'s monoclonal antibody, mavrilimumab, in the rare chronic inflammatory disease giant cell arteritis showed a 62% lower risk of flare in patients receiving the candidate vs. those given a placebo.
HONG KONG – Cambridge, U.K.-based Astrazeneca plc has resumed phase I/II trials in Japan for AZD-1222, the experimental, adenovirus vector-based candidate coronavirus vaccine that it is co-developing with the University of Oxford.
Shares of Corvus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:CRVS) climbed 19.4% to $4.86 Oct. 5 after the company said updated data from an ongoing phase I study of CPI-006 as an immunotherapy for COVID-19 continued to support its development in that area.
LONDON – Clinical care guidelines recommending the use of the HIV/AIDS combination lopinavir-ritonavir for the treatment of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 must now be updated, say the authors of a paper reporting the full results of a randomized U.K. study showing the antiviral is not effective in this context, published in The Lancet on Oct. 5.