Indapta Therapeutics Inc of San Francisco, US, has raised $50 million in a Series A financing round to advance its technology for allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell therapies. This involves isolating and expanding a subset of NK cells known as G-NK cells, suitable for administration with a monoclonal antibody.
Hookipa Pharma Inc is to take responsibility for advancing an antiviral drug candidate for HIV through early clinical development under an amended agreement with its partner Gilead Sciences Inc. Hookipa announced the recasting of the agreement on 15 February.
A woman who was diagnosed with HIV in 2013 and subsequently developed acute myeloid leukaemia, has reportedly seen her HIV go into remission four years after receiving a transplant of stem cells obtained from an infant’s umbilical cord blood. The case, reported by US media on 15 February, was described by scientists at the annual meeting of the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infection. It is the third time a patient with HIV has been reportedly cured of an HIV infection.
Merck & Co Inc has selected Curve Therapeutics Ltd as a new partner to help it discover and validate up to five new targets for the development of drugs for oncology and neurology indications. Located in Southampton, UK, Curve has a platform technology for identifying peptides contained in libraries that exhibit specific biological activity against selected therapeutic targets. Both the library and the targets are displayed in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells.
Intellia Therapeutics Inc is to out-license rights to its ex vivo Crispr/Cas9 genome editing platform to ONK Therapeutics Ltd enabling the Irish company to develop engineered natural killer (NK) cell therapies for cancer. ONK is developing off-the-shelf NK cell therapies. In addition to the genome editing platform, ONK will also have access to the US company’s lipid nanoparticle delivery technologies. The agreement will enable the development of up to five allogeneic NK cell therapies.
Life Sciences Partners (LSP) of the Netherlands has raised an additional €150 million for its LSP 7 fund, bringing the total amount for investment up to €1 billion. This represents the final close of one of the largest venture funds in Europe. The monies will be used to invest in 15 to 20 companies which are developing new drug therapies and medical technologies, LSP said on 11 February.
The financial performance of H. Lundbeck A/S in 2021 was negatively affected by the loss of patent protection for Northera, a key neurology drug. Despite this, the company is forecasting a rebound in 2022 on demand for Vyepti, a recently launched medicine for migraine prevention. Group sales in 2021 were DKK 16.3 billion ($2.5 billion), down by 8% from a year earlier following a 74% decline in revenue for Northera. Northera, a drug for neurogenic orthostatic hypotension, lost exclusivity in February 2021.
Novo Nordisk A/S maintained its leading position for glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) diabetes medicines with a 52.7% global market share in 2021, up by 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier. Novo's portfolio consists of just three GLP-1 medicines, but together they generated 38% of the company's sales. Group sales were DKK 140.8 billion ($21.4 billion) in 2021, an increase of 11% from a year earlier. The GLP-1 medicines generated DKK 53.6 billion, while insulins produced revenue of DKK 56 billion.
AstraZeneca Plc grew revenue by 41% to $37.4 billion in 2021, achieving significant increases across its four business sectors and in nearly all geographies except China where drug prices came under pressure. The top-line figure includes nearly $4 billion in revenue from the company’s Covid-19 vaccine, Vaxzevria, as well as $3.1 billion from drugs for rare diseases generated by the recent acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals.
In the fourth quarter, revenue was $12 billion, up by 62%.
Bayer AG has decided to discontinue development of the Phase 2 drug candidate, eliapixant, a P2X3 receptor antagonist that was being evaluated in endometriosis, refractory chronic cough, overactive bladder and diabetic neuropathic pain.