The European Union’s public-private partnership for drug development research, the Innovative Medicines Initiative, is to formally collaborate with the US Critical Path Institute, in a move to share more information from pre-competitive research.
CureVac GmbH, which has a messenger RNA vaccine in development for prostate cancer has reported that the vaccine induced an immune response to at least one antigen in 79% of patients in a Phase 1/2a study.
A molecular diagnostic developed by MDxHealth of Belgium will be used to screen patients for a second oncology trial in what is seen as a further expansion of the rapidly evolving field of personalised medicine. The assay tests methylation status.
Pfizer Inc has received institutional review board approval to start a virtual clinical trial in the US that uses mobile telephone and web-based technology to collect data from participants rather than requiring them to visit clinics.
Ipsen SA has discontinued development of its steroid sulfatase inhibitor, Irosustat, as a monotherapy for the treatment of hormone-dependent cancers. Instead it will explore development of the drug in combination with other hormonal therapies.
A consortium of Belgian academic scientists and biotechnology companies has recruited ImaginAb Inc of Los Angeles, California to work on a project to develop new diagnostic tools to monitor beta cell depletion in adult-onset diabetes.
Algeta ASA’s investigational radiopharmaceutical (radium-223 chloride) that is being developed by Bayer Schering Pharma AG, has met its primary endpoint in a Phase 3 trial of patients with prostate cancer and bone metastases.
Circulating tumour cells appear to have potential as a biomarker for clinical trials involving patients with metastatic prostate cancer. Data from a study of the potential biomarker was presented at the annual meeting of ASCO in Chicago.
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic in the US have reported that a tumour suppressor protein called PTEN does not reduce the effectiveness of Herceptin (trastuzumab) and therefore should not be used as a biomarker to predict resistance to the drug.
Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company have announced plans to investigate a combination of vemurafenib and ipilimumab in patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma. The two agents target the disease in different ways.