Bristol Myers Squibb Co has signalled a commitment to artificial intelligence with a strategic agreement with Anthropic PBC to deploy the AI tool Claude across the company’s research, clinical development, manufacturing, commercial and corporate functions. Announced on 20 May, the agreement will make the technology available to more than 30,000 BMS employees. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
A UK company with an ambition to develop a new class of therapeutics based on laboratory grown red blood cells has raised £3.2 million in seed funding. The financing was announced on 7 May and awarded to Scarlet Therapeutics Ltd which was founded by the University of Bristol, UK, professors Ash Toye and Jan Frayne. The company’s technology platform is based on engineered red blood cells with a potential for delivering therapeutic proteins in vivo to humans. The proteins remain inside the red blood cell membrane and therefore are not recognised by the immune system.
ERS Genomics Ltd, which manages licensing agreements for the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing tool, is to supply the technology to Aurigene Pharmaceutical Services Ltd in India, enabling the company to integrate gene editing into its drug discovery activities. Aurigene is a global contract research, development and manufacturing organisation. The deal was announced on 13 May.
The World Health Organization has determined that the current outbreak of Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), but does not meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency. This conclusion was announced in a statement on 17 May.
The outbreak meets the criteria of the definition of PHEIC, for several reasons.
It is not realistic to expect increased investment in medicines research in the EU or quicker access to new treatments for its citizens if member states insist on the lowest possible prices and highest government rebates, according to Nathalie Moll, Director General of Efpia, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. Ms Moll’s comments follow the publication of Efpia’s annual WAIT (Waiting to Access Innovative Therapies) report, which showed a picture of widening inequality among member states.
A provisional agreement by political authorities in the EU to support proposed legislation to improve the production and supply of critical medicines in the event of a disruption has been welcomed by the European Medicines Agency. Called the Critical Medicines Act, the legislation would spell out procedures for doing regular assessments of supply chains for the availability of essential medicines, identify vulnerabilities, and take steps to correct them. The EU has compiled a list of over 400 medicines which qualify as core products.
A gene therapy developed to treat hearing loss has been given an accelerated approved by the US Food and Drug Administration following the results of an ongoing single-arm trial. Developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc, Otarmeni (lunsotogene parvec) was approved on 23 April and is the first gene therapy authorised for a genetic hearing loss. The disorder, OTOF-related hearing loss, is an ultra-rare condition affecting about 50 children born every year in the US. It is caused by variants in the OTOF gene and the lack of a functional otoferlin protein.
Baxfendy (baxdrostat), a small molecule drug in-licensed and developed by AstraZeneca Plc, has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat adults with hypertension – a disease estimated to affect 1.4 billion people worldwide and a leading risk factor for cardiovascular disease and premature death. Announced on 18 May, the approval is for the use of Baxfendy in combination with other antihypertensive medicines to lower blood pressure in adults who are not adequately controlled.
Eli Lilly and Co’s agreement on 20 April to acquire Kelonia Therapeutics Inc in a deal worth up to $7 billion puts the company in place to exploit the emerging field of in vivo CAR-T therapy which has been described by analysts as a way to achieve therapeutic value without a complex production step. This compares with the traditional ex vivo approach in which T cells are extracted from a patient, modified in a laboratory, and then reinfused into the patient.
AstraZeneca Plc has reported trial data for a new combination therapy directed against muscle-invasive bladder cancer which showed improvements in event-free survival for the patients concerned. The muscle-invasive disease is estimated to affect one in four people with bladder cancer and arises when a tumour invades the bladder’s muscle wall. The standard treatment for these patients is surgery, with or without an adjuvant treatment.