News

GlaxoSmithKline Plc reported turnover of £8.6 billion for the third quarter, down by 8% from a year earlier, with all three of its business units showing anticipated sales declines. However there were signs of a recovery in the company’s vaccine business. This, plus measures to control costs, enabled the company to reaffirm its earnings guidance for the current year. On an adjusted basis, earnings per share are expected to be at the lower end of a one to four percent decline.

Turnover at Novartis was $12.3 billion in the third quarter, up by 1% from a year earlier, as gains in sales volumes were partially offset by a fall in prices and generic competition for the legacy medicines Afinitor and Exjade. The pattern was similar for the first nine months of the year when sales rose by 2% to $35.9 billion.

Bayer AG is to pay up to $4 billion to acquire Asklepios BioPharmaceutical Inc (AskBio), a US gene therapy company with a clinical-stage pipeline and a significant manufacturing capacity. It will pay $2 billion upfront for the company and up to $2 billion in success-based milestones, of which three quarters are expected to be due over the next five years.

Preclinical data from an experimental treatment for chronic heart failure have shown that the compound is safe, improves cardiac function and reduces both ventricular as well as left atrial volumes in chronic heart failure. The study results were obtained in a clinically relevant large animal model and published on 22 October in the European Heart Journal.

The anti-viral treatment Veklury (remdesivir) has been authorised in the US for the treatment of patients with Covid-19 who require hospitalisation – the first coronavirus treatment to receive a full Food and Drug Administration approval. Announced on 22 October, the decision covers the drug’s use for patients 12 years and older. It follows the agency’s more restrictive emergency use authorisation (EUA) for Veklury, issued in May, which will now only cover the drug’s use in young children.

A Swiss start-up, Araris Biotech AG, with new technology for antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), has raised an additional CHF 12.7 million in seed financing to advance its candidate drugs towards the clinic, bringing the total amount raised to CHF 15.2 million. The newest round was led by Pureos Bioventures of Zurich which noted that the company’s technology addresses some of the limitations of existing therapies.

The German unit of Immunic Inc has received a loan of up to €24.5 million from the European Investment Bank to support development of its lead asset as a potential treatment for patients with moderate coronavirus disease. The small molecule drug, IMU-838 (vidofludimus calcium), is also being tested in Phase 2 trials as a treatment for chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis and ulcerative colitis.

A second Phase 2 study of an experimental vaccine for Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted by ticks, has shown an encouraging immunological response in older adults, one of the vaccine’s main target groups, according to the developer Valneva SE.

Two candidate respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines generated positive data in Phase 1/2 studies, paving the way for the start of Phase 3 trials in the coming months, GlaxoSmithKline Plc announced on 21 October. The first vaccine has been developed for healthy women of child-bearing age, and the second for older adults. A third vaccine for infants is also in development, with data expected to be reported at the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases meeting on 26 to 29 October.

The German biotech Topas Therapeutics GmbH has raised €22 million in a Series B financing round to advance technology for inducing antigen-specific immune tolerance. The technology is thought to have application across a wide range of autoimmune diseases, allergies and a condition known as anti-drug antibodies where the body throws up resistance to the repeated administration of monoclonal antibodies.