Merck & Co Inc is the latest company to abandon a programme for treating patients with Alzheimer’s disease because the treatment failed to show efficacy. On 14 February, the US company said it was stopping a Phase 2/3 study of verubecestat, an inhibitor of beta-secretase 1 (BACE1).
Ergomed Plc has reported positive results from a Phase 2 study of its insomnia drug Lorediplon, a non-benzodiazepine hypnotic drug that modulates the GABAa receptor.
Heptares Therapeutics has launched a research partnership with the University of Cambridge to use its discovery platform targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to identify new drugs for cardiovascular disease.
Early clinical data for a therapeutic protein developed by Ablnyx NV to treat patients with psoriasis has demonstrated that the treatment is safe, with some evidence of a reduction in disease activity. The treatment targets the interleukin-17 (IL-17) pathway.
Enterome SA has started a Phase 1 study of its lead small molecule drug directed at the gut microbiome. The candidate drug targets the FimH protein as a means of blocking inflammation in Crohn’s disease.
A 50-year old patient with recurrent cancer involving tumours in both the brain and spinal cord has been treated with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy targeting an antigen that is overexpressed in a majority of glioblastomas.
Noxxon Pharma AG has become the latest company to reach an agreement with Merck & Co Inc to test a portfolio drug with Keytruda (pembrolizumab), the US company’s immune checkpoint inhibitor.
A patient with KRAS mutant metastatic colorectal cancer has been successfully treated with an autologous T cell receptor therapy, suggesting there may be a path forward for tackling difficult solid tumours, according to Kite Pharma Inc.
AstraZeneca Plc said that its recently approved lung cancer drug Tagrisso (osimertinib) has achieved another milestone, showing superiority to chemotherapy in a Phase 3 trial of patients with mutated metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.
Two Phase 3 trials which were seeking to show the superiority of a new combination treatment for patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) compared with the use of the licenced drug Lucentis alone, have failed to show an added benefit.