In a deal with just $50 million up front but the potential to reach $2.5 billion, Tokyo’s Taiho Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and Astex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, U.K., are joining Merck & Co. Inc. in an exclusive worldwide research collaboration and license agreement to develop small-molecule inhibitors against several cancer targets, including the KRAS oncogene. Read More
Investors warmed to biopharma company equities, particularly in the final quarter of the year, with the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical Index increasing 23% in value during this period, helping the group climb to a respectable 14% for the year after being underwater from April through to September. Read More
LONDON – Novo Repair has made new investments of $12 million, bringing the total invested by the specialist anti-infectives venture capital fund since it was set up two years ago to plug the gap in the early stage pipeline to $48 million. Read More
San Diego-based Atyr Pharma Inc. CEO Sanjay Shukla told BioWorld that the company plans to move into a registrational trial with lead candidate ATYR-1923 in pulmonary sarcoidosis (PS) if data from the ongoing phase Ib/IIa trial, due later this year, turn out positive. Releasing patients from steroid burdens “would be a real game-changer,” he said, noting that people with PS take as much as 25 mg of prednisone per day to control their coughs and shortness of breath. Read More
A reference genome from the Indian cobra compiled in an international collaborative study should lead to the development of new safer and more effective antivenoms, while the elucidated genome and predicted associated proteome may be a powerful platform for studies of venomous snakes. Read More
LONDON – A high level U.K. group, involving industry, academia, patients, health technology assessment and regulatory representatives, has set out guidelines for designing complex cancer trials and is calling for their rapid implementation to reduce clinical development timelines. Read More
PERTH, Australia – Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration is putting in place a number of opioid reforms to clamp down on the use of opioids to deal with increasing deaths and hospitalizations from the use of those drugs. Read More
As we entered a new decade, BioWorld writers took the opportunity to review the highs and lows of the past 12 months and they concluded that 2019 was a great year for the sector – save for a few bumps in the road. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations. Read More
