Pfizer Inc. is to buy Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. for $6.7 billion, adding a potential follow-up to inflammatory diseases pill Xeljanz (tofacitinib) to its pipeline plus several other potential medicines targeting gastroenterology, dermatology and cardiology. Read More
Regor Therapeutics Group and Eli Lilly and Co. have inked a collaboration and licensing deal to co-develop therapies for metabolic disorders in a deal worth more than $1.5 billion. Under terms of the agreement, Lilly is gaining access to Regor IP to support its development of therapies for obesity and diabetes. Read More
Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. is receiving $300 million up front in cash in its new collaboration with Loxo Oncology at Lilly to develop oncology medicines. Foghorn could bring in up to $1.3 billion in development and commercialization milestones. In addition, Lilly will invest $80 million in Foghorn. Read More
LONDON – There was a substantial fall in neutralization titers against the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the stored sera of people who had received two doses of either Astrazeneca plc’s or Pfizer Inc./Biontech SE’s COVID-19 vaccines, with some samples failing to neutralize the virus at all, according to the latest data from the U.K. Com-Cov study. Read More
In 2021, progress on preventing and treating COVID-19 was a seemingly endless series of starts and stalls. In spite of the high-profile stumbles, science and finance took startling steps forward. Read More
LONDON – The confluence of Brexit and pandemic has hit regulators in Europe hard this year, with the workload of assessing COVID-19 vaccines and antivirals made all the more onerous by the loss of expertise suffered by both the EMA and the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare products Agency (MHRA) as their close relationship was severed. Read More
U.S. regulators continued to be plagued in 2021 with accusations of politicization, most of which revolved around the expansion of the COVID-19 vaccine. Despite the Biden administration’s avowed commitment to follow the science in regulatory decision-making, the White House COVID-19 Response Team appeared to jump ahead of the science Aug. 18 when it announced the Sept. 20 rollout of a nationwide booster program for all adults. The program called for boosters to be administered eight months after the final dose of the vaccine. But just a few days earlier, government health officials had stressed that boosters were only needed for people who were immunocompromised. Read More
Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) was associated with a 35% reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in studies presented at the plenary session of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting on Sunday. Read More
Orca Bio Inc. reported at the American Society of Hematology that cancer patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) who received its Orca-T cell therapy product achieved higher rates of survival without experiencing either relapse or chronic graft-vs.-host (GvHD) disease than those who received a conventional graft. Read More
Core presentations at the 63rd meeting of the annual American Society of Hematology (ASH) began Saturday morning with the presentation of three studies focused on non-Hodgkin lymphomas and one on multiple myeloma (MM). Each approach used the immune system as a cancer fighter but employed different mechanisms of action. Two of them successfully used CAR T therapies as treatment. Read More
Endogena Therapeutics Inc., of San Francisco, has raised another $20 million in a series A funding round to progress a regenerative medicine that could use stem cells to “heal” the damage caused by eye disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Read More
New hires and promotions in the biopharma industry, including: Altimmune, Arcturus, Iterum, Neurona, Nicox, Obseva, Optinose, Regencell, Stemirna. Read More
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Active Biotech, Aeromics, Angion, Beigene, Carrick, Clene, Eucure, Gilead, Immunic, Moderna, Obseva, Roche, Simcere, UCB, Vifor. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Bioinvent, CASI, Cytokinetics, Junshi. Read More
