PERTH, Australia – Prota Therapeutics Ltd.’s lead candidate PRT-120 induced clinical remission of peanut allergy in 51% of children in a phase IIb clinical trial. There are currently no curative therapies to treat food allergies, Prota Therapeutics CEO Mimi Tang told BioWorld. Peanut allergy in children can be particularly problematic because the only treatment is avoidance.
PERTH, Australia – Prota Therapeutics Ltd.’s lead candidate PRT-120 induced clinical remission of peanut allergy in 51% of children in a phase IIb clinical trial. There are currently no curative therapies to treat food allergies, Prota Therapeutics CEO Mimi Tang told BioWorld. Peanut allergy in children can be particularly problematic because the only treatment is avoidance.
Less than a month after would-be competitor DBV Technologies SA suffered a regulatory setback with its peanut allergy patch candidate, Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. – which at the start of the year gained FDA clearance for Palforzia in the same space – is undergoing an all-cash takeover valued at $2.6 billion by Nestle SA unit Nestle Health Science SA.
Adopting a new strategy in food allergies and others, South San Francisco-based Iggenix Inc. launched with a $10 million series A round to fund work that CEO Bruce Hironaka told BioWorld puts the company “at the front of the wave.” Companies in the allergy space generally “have not taken full advantages of the developments that we’ve seen in the biotech industry over the last 20 or 30 years,” he said.
Second-quarter earnings reports, flowing fast in the last days of July, delivered a bevy of contrasting results, from A to V. Stymied by the pandemic, Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. booked exactly zero net sales during the quarter for its expected blockbuster peanut allergy treatment, Palforzia. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Seattle Genetics Inc. beat top-line expectations, driven primarily by strong sales of new products.
Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. wasted no time moving ahead after last week’s FDA approval of Palforzia for peanut allergy as the Brisbane, Calif.-based company obtained an exclusive worldwide license to develop and commercialize Xencor Inc.’s humanized monoclonal antibody, XmAb-7195, for treating allergic asthma.
The FDA has issued two new approvals, one for a cell-based pandemic influenza A (H5N1) vaccine and the other is the first approval for treating peanut allergy.
CLEVELAND The list is out, and a dual-acting osteoporosis drug and a device for expanding the use of minimally invasive mitral valve surgery have come out on top.