Circassia Ltd of the UK has completed a Phase 2 study of its T-cell vaccine for ragweed allergy showing a significant reduction in symptoms, the company said. The company is backed by venture capital with Imperial Innovations holding 18.4%.
Basilea Pharmaceutica Ltd of Switzerland said that its Phase 3 US trial for the investigational compound alitretinoin for severe chronic hand eczema achieved ‘clear’ or ‘almost clear’ hands for 40% of patients, thus meeting the trial’s primary endpoint.
InDex Pharmaceuticals AB, a privately-held Swedish immunotherapy company, is starting a Phase 3 trial of Kappaproct, which has performed well in earlier tests in treating steroid-resistant ulcerative colitis patients.
In seeking to increase R&D productivity, Big Pharma should consider outsourcing all of its discovery activity and focus instead on building capacity in translational medicine, Simon Moroney, the MorphoSys chief executive, told a meeting in London.
Venture-capital backed ArGEN-X BV of the Netherlands said that it has advanced a third therapeutic antibody candidate into preclinical development, in this instance an antibody targeting the c-Met signalling pathway which is implicated in many cancers.
Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc said that enrolment of patients into four studies of a new agent against Gram-negative bacteria, GSK052, has been stopped pending investigation of a microbiologial finding in a small number of patients.
Agennix AG of Germany has stopped further enrollment and treatment in a Phase 2/3 trial of talactoferrin, a genetically-engineered form of the human protein, lactoferrin, on safety grounds. The drug was being studied in sepsis.
A research consortium, led by investigators at St George’s, University of London, has reported discovering a new gene, the fourth in a series, to be associated with lymphoedema, a swelling that arises from an impaired lymphatic system.
A novel immune mechanism that could play a role in the treatment of a wide variety of diseases has been described in the journal Science. The finding was made by a team led by Eric Vivier, scientific co-founder of Innate Pharma SA of France.
Two papers in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry have highlighted technology developed by scientists at Heptares Therapeutics Ltd aimed at generating new leads for drugs that target the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) family of proteins.