News

Merck & Co Inc paused enrolment on 6 December for two Phase 3 trials of its lead investigational treatment for HIV – a little more than two weeks after stopping dosing in a Phase 2 study of an HIV combination therapy. The measures were taken on the recommendation of the trials’ respective data monitoring committees. They affect MK-8507, a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor, and islatravir, a nucleoside reverse transcriptase translocation inhibitor. In both cases, the actions were taken in relation to total lymphocyte and CD4+ T cell counts in patients.

The Covid-19 vaccine produced by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE is able to neutralise the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus after three doses, preliminary laboratory studies have shown. Two doses of the vaccine appear to be less effective, but still offer protection against the most severe forms of the disease, the companies reported on 8 December.

More than 43% of the global population of 7.9 billion people have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 with all regions of the world except Africa making progress in immunising their people, according to statistics released by the European Commission on 8 December. The World Health Organization has set an immunisation target of 70% to be achieved by September 2022 at the next meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

A new immunotherapy company has been launched in the UK, based on science conducted by Caetano Reis e Sousa and colleagues at the Francis Crick Institute in London. Adendra Therapeutics Ltd will research candidate drugs for the treatment of solid cancers and T cell-based autoimmune disorders by exploiting dendritic cell biology.

The UK artificial intelligence company BenevolentAI Ltd has decided to merge with a special purpose acquisition company in order to get access to more funding for its portfolio of drug candidates, discovered through the use of AI and machine learning. The merger is with Odyssey Acquisition SA of Luxembourg which raised €300 million for the transaction in July. Odyssey will raise an additional €135 million to complete the merger.

Celyad Oncology SA, a Belgian cell therapy developer, has made a private share placement with an affiliate of the Fortress Investment Group, raising $32.5 million to help support its operations into the first half of 2023. The placement involved 6.5 million ordinary shares and was arranged by SVB Leerink.

The board of Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (Sobi) has said the withdrawal of a takeover bid by a private equity consortium won’t change the company’s strategic objective of becoming a global leader in rare diseases. The statement, issued on 3 December, follows an announcement by the consortium that it was cancelling its $8.1 billion tender offer for the Swedish company after only 87.3% of shareholders accepted it. The consortium was looking to buy more than 90% of Sobi’s outstanding shares.

Belgium-based UCB SA has negotiated a partnership with Novartis to co-develop a small molecule treatment for Parkinson’s disease which it in-licenced in 2014 from Neuropore Therapeutics Inc. The candidate treatment, UCB0599, targets alpha-synuclein, a key protein involved in the disease’s pathology. The compound is currently in a Phase 2 study in patients with early-stage disease.

A stem cell-derived therapy has restored the function of pancreatic islet cells in a patient with Type 1 diabetes in what is being described as the first demonstration of a potentially curative treatment for the disease. The therapy is being developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc on the basis of research conducted by Douglas Melton, a professor at Harvard University and co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in Cambridge, US.

Vifor Pharma Group has expanded its presence in nephrology with the acquisition of two companies with therapies addressing specific aspects of vascular calcification. The companies are Sanifit Therapeutics SA of Spain and Inositec AG of Switzerland.