HONG KONG – As drug developers are racing to find a cure for the new coronavirus, researchers in Hong Kong claim to have made major headway in the development of a vaccine for the virus that has so far killed 132. Yuen Kwok-yung, the chair of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong’s (HKU) department of microbiology, said in a press briefing at Hong Kong’s Queen Mary Hospital that his team had successfully isolated the novel virus from the first imported case in Hong Kong. But he said the vaccine still needs months to be tested on animals and an additional year for human trials before it is fit for use.
Despite pressure from several lawmakers to declare the new coronavirus a U.S. public health emergency, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar said such a declaration isn’t needed, at least not yet. Read More
LONDON – It has gone from “pneumonia of unknown cause” affecting 44 patients in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 5, 2020, to spark a global health alert, with the World Health Organization (WHO) now looking likely to declare the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) less than four weeks later. Read More
When developmental neurobiologist Arnold Kriegstein talks about his work, it sounds for all the world like he is talking about the brains of teenagers. They are stressed. Their identity is mixed up. But putting them in a good environment is helpful to their development. Kriegstein, though, was describing brain organoids. Read More
Timber Pharmaceuticals LLC, a startup created by New Jersey-based investment and operating firm Tardimed Sciences LLC, said it's poised to make a fresh leap into the public market this year with plans to take over Biopharmx Corp.'s NYSE listing in a new reverse merger deal. Read More
Bayer AG and Merck & Co. Inc. took Wall Street by surprise in November with their phase III success testing vericiguat in heart failure (HF), such that the guanylate cyclase stimulator’s odds not only have improved significantly but also in a different way than imagined before. Read More
In its first step into Japan, Agex Therapeutics Inc. accelerates its development of engineering hypoimmunogenic cells, universal cells that can be used on patients who didn’t generate the original cell and without the need to use immunosuppressants. Read More
Biopharmas raising money in public or private financings, including Alector, Annovis, Atyr, Biohaven, Cocrystal, Denali, Idbydna, Salarius, Trillium Read More
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications, including Akcea, Delmar, Emmaus, Exopharm, Geneos, Intercept, Orexo, Satsuma, Unum, Vasopharm, Verastem Read More
Biopharma happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief, including Addex, Allergy Therapeutics, Celularity, Chimerix, Conatus, Cytodyn, Cyxone, Decibel, Fibrogenesis, Galmed, Genfit, Gilead, Hepion, Histogen, Hoth, Innovation, Isoprene, Johnson & Johnson, Madrigal, Microcures, Merck, Mogrify, Nymox, Oncology Pharma, Onxeo, Otonomy, Sorrento, Spinalcyte, Spring Bank, Syros, Veloxis, Wuxi Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations, including Cabaletta, Exelixis, Fulcrum, Galapagos, Janssen, Kite, Lilly, Orchard, Teva Read More
