The Vivani Medical Inc. combination appears to be over less than three years since its inception after the company reported plans to spin off Cortigent, the division that develops brain implants. Vivani said it plans to create two focused companies dedicated to driving current and future value in their respective therapeutic areas.
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Atsena, Celltrion, Geron, Maat, Orphelia.
Biopharma happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Arecor, Centogene, Emergent, Harbour, Rocketvax, SK Bioscience.
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Ascletis, Clene, Gilead, OSE, Portage, Quralis, Viiv.
In 2020, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) was the first scientific conference to move from in-person to virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the fifth anniversary of the virtual conference, and the pandemic, some of those earliest COVID-19 patients have still not recovered.
Looking to shave $65 million from its annual expenditures while streamlining the first stage of its two-level grant review process, the U.S. NIH is proposing to centralize the peer review of all applications for grants, cooperative agreements and R&D contracts within its Center for Scientific Review.
Aim Vaccine Co. Ltd. may become the first company to gain regulatory clearance of a prophylactic iterative serum-free human rabies vaccine. Beijing-based Aim said it is preparing a regulatory submission of its independently developed rabies vaccine based on positive phase III results that showed good safety, immunogenicity and immune persistence.
Celltrion Inc. is on a biosimilar roll with the U.S. FDA this month, having gained clearance of Stoboclo and Osenvelt as products referencing Amgen Inc.’s biologic, denosumab (Prolia, Xgeva), along with Omlyclo becoming the first and only interchangeable biosimilar to omalizumab (Xolair, Genentech Inc. and Novartis AG).