Sanofi SA has received a second multi-million dollar contract from the US government’s biomedical advanced research and development authority (BARDA) for research into new medicinal products – this time for a product to treat acute radiation syndrome in the event of a public health emergency.
Newron Pharmaceuticals SpA, an Italian biotech with a Zurich listing, has raised CHF 26.1 million (€23.8 million) with a private equity placement, which will help cover marketing and research and development costs through 2018.
Alnylam Pharmaceutials Inc, the world’s leading developer of therapies based on RNA interference (RNAi) , has stopped development of revusiran, a treatment for a hereditary amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy, a condition caused by the abnormal accumulation of amyloid proteins in the body.
A collaborative research project between scientists at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Karus Therapeutics Ltd, a venture capital-backed company in the UK, has yielded a candidate drug inhibiting P13K, a target of growing interest to the pharmaceutical industry.
AstraZeneca Plc’s anti-platelet agent Brilinta (ticagrelor) has failed to show a significant benefit over Plavix in a Phase 3 study of patients with symptomatic peripheral artery disease (PAD) – the second trial failure this year for the drug.
Citing competitive pressures in the US, Novo Nordisk A/S has announced plans to reduce its workforce by about 1,000 employees – or 2.4% of its global staff of 42,300 persons. The measures do not alter the company’s forecast for 2016 which calls for increases in sales and operating profit.
A new oncology company, Carrick Therapeutics Ltd, has been launched in Dublin, Ireland with $95 million in seed funding to build a portfolio of personalised medicines based on emerging knowledge about cancer growth and resistance at a molecular level.
A new combination therapy trial designed to test kinase and checkpoint inhibitors together to see whether they are effective in treating mesothelioma, non-small cell lung and pancreatic cancers, is expected to start late this year or early in 2017.
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has expanded its oncology portfolio to include oncolytic virus technology through a collaboration with privately held ViraTherapeutics GmbH of Austria. The deal is potentially worth €210 million.
The European Medicines Agency has appealed against a court order preventing it from releasing documents relating to two marketed medicines, arguing that the disclosures are consistent with its policy on transparency.