A cartilage repair product developed by co.don AG of Germany received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency on 19 May, making it the ninth advanced therapy medicinal product (ATMP) to be assessed for marketing in Europe.
Heptares Therapeutics has described the structure of the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor binding to a peptide agonist, giving the first visual evidence of how a class of drugs that treat Type 2 diabetes actually work. The findings were reported online in Nature on 31 May 2017.
A novel vaccine platform developed by Hookipa Biotech AG has triggered an immune response in genetically engineered mice with cancer that was stronger than many conventional viral vectors. The findings were published on 26 May 2017 in Nature Communications.
Merck & Co Inc’s checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab) has been approved in the US for multiple solid tumours that have a common genetic feature known as microsatellite instability-high or mismatch repair deficit.
The Novartis tyrosine kinase inhibitor Zykadia (ceritinib) has been approved in the US for the first-line treatment of ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer following Phase 3 data that showed a significant improvement in progression free survival in patients with the disease.
Epidiolex, a cannabinoid drug for a type of childhood epilepsy known as Dravet syndrome has reduced the frequency of seizures in a Phase 3 trial of children and adolescents with the disease, all of whom were not getting relief from current treatments.
Belgium-based Argenx NV has made its debut on the Nasdaq over-the-counter market in the US, capping what has been nearly a decade of successful antibody discovery and development. On 17 May, it announced the pricing of an initial public offering (IPO) of its shares that was set to yield $100 million.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc has received a new approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for its cystic fibrosis treatment Kalydeco (ivacaftor) that triples the number of rare gene mutations that the drug can treat to 33 from 10.
A group of biotech entrepreneurs, led by a former executive at Novartis, has announced plans to raise €50 million for a fund that will invest in Italian life science. The fund is being managed by AurorA-TT, a technology transfer company set up in Milan earlier this year.
Belgium-based Celyad SA, which used to go by the name of Cardio3 BioSciences SA, has secured a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Novartis giving the Swiss company rights to US patents for the production of allogeneic CAR T cells.