TOKYO – Peptidream Inc.'s stock, which had surged on Monday after inking a $1 billion-plus collaboration agreement, might have failed to keep the momentum going on Tuesday. But the news of a multitarget discovery and optimization collaboration agreement with U.S.-based Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. underscored the growth of the company, which now has 17 funded discovery collaboration deals. (See BioWorld Today, April 10, 2017.) Read More

PERTH, Australia – Melbourne-based Opthea Ltd.'s recent A$45 million (US$33.7 million) equity financing will go toward expanding clinical development of its VEGF-C/D trap therapy candidate, OPT-302, for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), aiming to prove additive benefit to existing VEGF-A treatments. Read More

HONG KONG – In a country where just seven new oncology drugs were introduced in the last five years, the recent approval of Apac Biotech Pvt. Ltd.'s first-of-its-kind autoimmune therapy marked a significant step forward. Read More

Korean researchers at Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) have discovered a new mechanism through which senescence is controlled at the cellular level and identified a means by which that mechanism's function is modulated, offering the potential to reverse the aging process. Read More

HONG KONG – The CFDA recently accepted a clinical trial application (CTA) to conduct phase I and phase III trials of rituximab biosimilar JHL1101, submitted by JHL Biotech Inc., a startup based in Zhubei City, Taiwan, and Wuhan, China. If successful, the biosimilar will be key to improving drug access in the country for patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Read More

TOKYO – Despite the weakening yen and uncertainties in the drug pricing system, Japan's pharmaceutical market is still the most attractive in the Asia-Pacific region and only second to the U.S. globally, according to a recent report by BMI Research. The market's size and purchasing power as well as the strength of the regulatory environment makes the outlook of Japan's pharmaceutical industry highly promising. Read More

Mesoblast Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, and Boston Children's Hospital, the pediatric teaching hospital of Harvard University, said they've gained FDA approval for starting a 24-patient trial combining Mesoblast's allogeneic mesenchymal precursor cells (MPCs) with corrective heart surgery in children under the age of 5 with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). The trial is sponsored and funded by the hospital with support from the Bulens and Capozzi Foundation and the Ethan Lindberg Foundation. Read More