HONG KONG – Aiming to increase the financial stability of the national health care insurance system, Japan has announced a list of 17 drugs for which prices will be reduced. The country’s Central Social Insurance Medical Council, an advisory group from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW), approved the drug repricing system on Jan. 22. Read More
BEIJING – The current speed of new developments in the 2019-nCov outbreak is illustrated by a Jan. 28, 2020, press conference in Munich, where Andreas Zapf, head of the infection task force in the Bavarian ministry for health and food safety, briefed reporters on the first confirmed German case. Read More
BEIJING – China will kickstart a phase III trial Feb. 3 to determine whether patients with 2019-nCoV can be treated with Gilead Sciences Inc.’s NUC inhibitor, remdesivir, which was originally developed for Ebola, four days after a U.S. patient was said to have recovered by using the drug candidate. Read More
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.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has declared a public health emergency in the U.S. over the coronavirus in part because a government diagnostic for the virus yields inconsistent results, a fact that may spur the life sciences to provide a solution. Read More
HONG KONG – In another example that communication is proving as difficult as containment in the current coronavirus outbreak, China’s state media reported, to increasing skepticism, that a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) oral liquid could inhibit the new coronavirus. Read More
HONG KONG – South Korean biotech Novelty Nobility Inc. has attracted ₩10 billion (US$9 million) in series A funding to develop therapeutic antibodies inhibiting the stem cell factor (SCF)/c-KIT pathway. Read More
PERTH, Australia – Mesoblast Ltd. has filed the final module of its rolling BLA submission for its allogeneic mesenchymal precursor cell therapy, remestemcel-L, after it showed strong survival rates in children with acute steroid-refractory graft-vs.-host disease (aGVHD). 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
Biopharma happenings in Asia-Pacific, such as deals and partnerships, grants, preclinical data and other news in brief, including: Advaccine, Anticancer, Asahi Kasei, Aspen, Avacta, BGI, Biolexis, Celularity, Clover, Curetis, Curevac, Daewoong, Duke-National University, Horizon, Inovio, Novartis, Outlook, Oxford Gene Technology, Sandoz, Sorrento, Sysmex, Takeda, Veloxis, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wuxi Biologics. Read More
Clinical updates from Asia, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications, including: Bio-Thera Solutions, CSPC, Exopharm, Exscientia, Otsuka, Rani, Teva, Verastem Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations in Asia-Pacific, including: Astellas, CSL, Exelixis, Fibrogen, Mesoblast, Seqirus, Takeda Read More
