A candidate vaccine for the prevention of malaria has shown an efficacy rate of 77% in a Phase 2b trial of African children between the ages of five to 17 months – exceeding an efficacy target set by the World Health Organization. The trial results were published online by The Lancet on 22 April 2021, prior to peer review.
Medigene AG has reported the discovery of novel immunogenic tumour specific antigens derived from the non-coding regions of the human genome. The German biotech company presented the finding at the virtual annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on 10 April.
Future Planet Capital, a London, UK-based investment group, has acquired Midven Ltd, one of Britain’s oldest venture capital firms, with a view to expanding its network of academic and public sector relationships in the life sciences. Announced on 8 April, the value of the transaction wasn’t disclosed.
A new UK company focused on developing small molecule drugs for rare neuromuscular and metabolic diseases is being prepared for launch following the publication of research on mitochondrial dysfunction in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. The company, MitoRx Therapeutics, is being spun out of the University of Exeter. Jon Rees, a life sciences consultant, has been named chief executive.
A vaccine developed by Russia to prevent coronavirus disease has been shown to be 91.6% effective, according to data from a Phase 3 trial published in The Lancet on 2 February 2021. The vaccine, Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V), is a combined vector vaccine carrying the gene for the SARS-CoV-2 full length glycoprotein S. It is intended to elicit antibodies to the virus glycoprotein as well as antigen-specific cellular immunity.
AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford have become the third developers to report high levels of efficacy for their experimental vaccine to prevent Covid-19. The partners are now preparing for regulatory submissions, and have reaffirmed a commitment to supply their vaccine globally on a not-for-profit basis for the duration of the pandemic.
A new venture fund designed to provide seed funding to start-up companies in the UK life science sector has raised £15 million. Start Codon Fund I LP was created by the Start Codon business accelerator. The limited partner investors in the fund include Novartis International AG and Cambridge Innovation Capital, a venture investor focused on opportunities in the Cambridge University ecosystem.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna for their discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 genetic scissors, a method of genome editing. It marks the first time ever that two female scientists have jointly won the award.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has been awarded to a team of scientists who discovered the hepatitis C virus. Harvey J Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M Rice have made a “decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis,” according to the prize committee.
A case study of a 45-year old woman with severe Covid-19 has shown that administration of APN01, an experimental biologic, enabled the generation of neutralising antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and a rapid drop in virus load. The results of the study were reported online in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine on 24 September 2020.