Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has gone back on efforts to get its medicine, Asimtufii (aripiprazole), a long-acting maintenance treatment for schizophrenia, approved in Europe, after the EMA gave a provisional negative opinion. Read More
Heartseed Inc. raised ¥2 billion (US$14.3 million) in a series D round to continue the phase I/II Lapis trial of its allogeneic induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiomyocytes for heart failure. The lead asset, HS-001, is an investigational cell therapy consisting of clusters of purified heart muscle cells (cardiomyocyte spheroids) derived from iPSCs that are designed to restore heart muscle and function in patients with advanced heart failure. Read More
The U.K. government has announced £121 million (US$148 million) in funding to reboot the commercial clinical trials system after a sharp decline saw the number of industry-sponsored studies falling by 44% from 2017 to 2021. Read More
Lack of efficacy brought the development of two investigational agents for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ASL) to a halt over the past week. On May 23, Wave Life Sciences Inc. disclosed that its stereopure antisense oligonucleotide WVE-004 failed to demonstrate clinical benefit after 24 weeks of treatment on a phase Ib/IIa trial in familial ALS patients or frontotemporal dementia patients. And on May 25, Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc. and its partner, Swedish Orphan Biovitrum International AB, said that pegcetacoplan failed to meet its primary endpoint of a one-year phase II trial in patients with sporadic disease. Read More
With overuse of opioids – the standard of care for many chronic pain cases – becoming something of an epidemic in the U.S., the availability of an alternative, non-opioid analgesic is a big draw. Established in 2021, Adolore Biotherapeutics Inc. is one company that could provide the answer, with its locally and long-acting gene therapies potentially providing a breakthrough that “knocks everybody’s socks off.” Read More
U.S. FDA approvals had a modest increase during the first four months of 2023 compared to last year, but still fall short of the peaks seen in 2019 and 2021. Read More
Mixing a trendy drug for a global health problem like obesity with a demand that far exceeds the supply cooks up a recipe too good for counterfeiters to ignore. That’s the problem patients are facing with Novo Nordisk A/S’ semaglutide products, Ozempic and Wegovy, which have been in short supply all over the world since early last year due to significant, and unexpected, demand for weight management. Read More
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Annexon, Antabio, Apellis, Bial, Bioinvent, Bioxcel, Harmony, Immutep, Jaguar, Lynk, Onconova, Stallergenes, Stemcyte, Topas, Transgene, Vanda. Read More
Biopharma happenings, including deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief: Adamis, Biontech, DMK, Intercept, Madrigal, Pfizer. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Accropeutics, Applied Therapeutics, Celltrion, Dyne, Hibio, Janssen, Legend, Pfizer, Sandoz. Read More