News

GlaxoSmithKline Plc stepped up its vaccine activities in the first quarter while simultaneously launching a two-year programme to prepare for its split into two companies. The previously-announced separation will create two new entities: a new GSK biopharma company and a consumer healthcare company.

A Phase 3 lung cancer trial of the checkpoint antibody Libtayo (cemiplimab) has been stopped early due to a significant improvement in overall survival, the developers Sanofi SA and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc announced on 27 April. Libtayo is a programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1) blocking antibody that frees the immune system to fight cancer. The drug has already been approved in the US to treat advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma.

Compass Pathways Ltd has raised $80 million in a Series B investment round to support its lead product for treatment-resistant depression – a psilocybin therapy that has received breakthrough therapy designation from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Sanofi SA posted strong gains in both sales and operating profit in the first quarter boosted by medicine stockpiling during the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. The quarterly result also featured a more than doubling of sales for the immunology drug Dupixent, which was co-developed with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Lynparza (olaparib) has demonstrated another benefit for patients with a specific genetic mutation – this time in a Phase 3 trial of men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Lynparza is a poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor that is already approved for ovarian, breast and pancreatic cancers.

Immunic Inc is to test its lead anti-inflammatory product IMU-838 as a potential COVID-19 therapeutic after preclinical studies showed the small molecule drug was active against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Separately, the company has announced the pricing of a new share issue which is expected to yield a net $14 million.

US-based SwanBio Therapeutics Inc has raised an additional $52 million in an expanded Series A financing to advance a candidate gene therapy for the inherited neurological disorder adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN). The new financing brings the total raised in the round to $77 million. It will enable to company to conduct studies leading up to a first clinical trial as well as build up its manufacturing capacity.

NOXXON Pharma NV has secured financing of up to €14.2 million in convertible bonds enabling it to continue the clinical development of its RNA oligonucleotide drugs for cancer. The convertible bond agreement is with Atlas Special Opportunities LLC. The full financing agreement, if drawn in total, will allow the Germany-based company to finance its activities to the beginning of 2022, including the completion of an ongoing trial in patients with newly diagnosed brain cancer.

Norway-based Targovax ASA is to work with Valo Therapeutics Oy to investigate a new vaccine platform that could target a range of difficult-to-treat cancers. Targovax has an oncolytic virus product, ONCOS-102, in early clinical development against a number of cancers including mesothelioma where it recently generated positive data. It also has recent experience with a cancer vaccine targeting tumours expressing mutated forms of RAS.

A second pharma partnership is poised to start a human trial of a candidate vaccine for COVID-19 using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. Germany-based BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc will test BioNTech’s BNT162 programme in approximately 200 healthy subjects between the ages of 18 and 55. Permission to start the trial was granted by the German regulator, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, the companies announced on 22 April.