LONDON – Abingworth announced the final closing of its latest fund at $582 million, bringing the amount committed to the London-based venture capital firm in 2021 to more than $1 billion. The clinical co-development fund 2 will finance and manage late-stage development of phase III programs sourced from pharma and biotech companies, receiving a pre-negotiated fee when a drug is approved. The model obviously has appeal, with the new fund being significantly oversubscribed and exceeding its target of $350 million. Read More
Flagship Pioneering, the company-creating venture fund that launched Moderna Inc. in 2012, is betting $50 million on a new twist in RNA-focused development at Laronde Inc. Leveraging its explorations of the therapeutic applicability of long non-coding RNA, Flagship CEO Noubar Afeyan said the company has created Endless RNA (eRNA), "a new class of medicines that can be programmed to persistently express therapeutic proteins in the body, at tunable levels." Read More
Novavax Inc. backed off its guidance of submitting an EUA for its COVID-19 vaccine in June, pushing the anticipated date to this fall. “We expect to complete regulatory filings in the third quarter,” Stan Erck, Novavax’s president and CEO, told investors on a May 10 conference call. “We hope to have market authorizations in multiple countries in the third quarter, as early in the quarter as possible.” Read More
Biopharma companies need to provide unredacted access to both positive and negative clinical data for all new drugs and vaccines, whether the drugs have been rejected, authorized for emergency use, or granted full or conditional approval, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and international regulators. “The COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the need for improved transparency of medical research,” said EMA Executive Director Emer Cooke, who also chairs the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA). Read More
China saw $28.5 billion invested in its life sciences sector in 2020, which was double the previous year’s amount and sets a five-year high. Partnering activities and IPOs also grew exponentially over the last five years to set records. Read More
Despite the demonstrated benefits of using patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in clinical trials assessing new cancer drugs in adults, PROs are rarely used in pediatric cancer trials. Hoping to change that, the FDA is convening the pediatric subcommittee of its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) May 11 to discuss how to effectively use a pediatric form of the PRO version of the common terminology criteria for adverse events. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Amgen, Ampio, Astrazeneca, Biocorrx, Eagle, Kyowa Kirin, Liquidia, Merck, Mustang, Pfizer, Smart. Read More
