Mydecine Innovations today announced it entered a definitive share exchange agreement to acquire 100% of NeuroPharm. Mydecine Innovations will acquire all issued and outstanding shares in the capital of NeuroPharm for $6 million, which will be payable in common shares in the capital of the company. NeuroPharm is currently developing evidence-based medicine of psychedelic based…
Biopharmaceutical companies pledge more than $1 billion to develop new antibiotics
More than 20 biopharmaceutical companies around the world have pledged more than $1 billion toward the Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Action Fund that launched today. Pledges include $100 million from Pfizer and $50 million from Boehringer Ingelheim. An initiative of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA), the fund’s goal is to bring two to four…
Plakous lands $1.7m from NIH to develop newborn treatment
Plakous Therapeutics announced that it received more than $1.7 million in a research grant from he Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Phase I-II fast-track small business innovation research (SBIR) grant, worth up to $1.725 million, is slated to help Plakous develop…
Want to reopen your pharma lab amid COVID-19? Consider these strategies first
Here are a few real estate and facility management strategies to help you get your pharma R&D lab up and running amid the COVID-19 pandemic, courtesy of commercial real estate outfit JLL. Roger Humphrey, JLL COVID-19 has unleashed a logistical conundrum for pharmaceutical leaders: How do you keep momentum in therapeutics development, when, like all…
Novartis, Alexion charged with FPCA violations
Novartis (NYSE:NVS) and Alexion Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:ALXN) were charged with violations of the books and records and internal accounting controls provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that the pharmaceutical companies both committed violations and both agreed to pay millions of dollars to settle the charges. Novartis settled to…
Partnership will study use of existing drugs for COVID-19 and and more
A new collaboration funded by in part by $1.1 million from the FDA is working on finding new uses for existing drugs for areas of high unmet medical need — with a pilot project focused on treatments for COVID-19. The Critical Path Institute (C-Path) this week announced the launch of the CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory…
Wyss Institute lands $16m to repurpose drugs for COVID-19
Lindsay Brownell, Wyss Institute The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded $16 million to Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering to identify and test FDA-approved drugs that could be repurposed to prevent or treat COVID-19. Using its computational drug discovery pipelines and human Organ Chip technologies, the institute has already found multiple…
Merck acquires Themis to speed COVID-19 vaccine development
Merck (NYSE:MRK) announced today that it completed the acquisition of vaccine and immune-modulation therapy developer Themis for an undisclosed amount. In connection with the acquisition, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission granted early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, while Merck gained merger control from the Austrian Federal Competition Authority,…
Beckman Coulter wins CE Mark for COVID-19 antibody test
Beckman Coulter announced this week that its Access SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody assay received CE Mark approval and is commercially available in Europe. Brea, Calif.-based Beckman Coulter said in a news release that it already shipped tests to more than 400 hospitals, clinics and diagnostic laboratories in the U.S. and has begun to ship around the…
Researchers identify potent antibody cocktail to treat COVID-19
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) said they identified a promising anti-viral cocktail therapy against COVID-19. According to a news release, the researchers evaluated several human antibodies to determine the most potent combination to be mixed and used against SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. In collaboration with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:REGN), UMSOM published…
Oxford researchers find widely available steroid reduces COVID-19 deaths
Oxford researchers announced today that, following testing with thousands of patients, dexamethasone may improve patient survival in cases of COVID-19. Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid commonly used for treating arthritis and other cases of inflammation. In total, 2,104 patients were randomized in Oxford’s trial to receive dexamethasone in doses of 6 mg, once per day, either…
Grifols starts production of COVID-19 prevention drug
Grifols (NSDQ:GRFS) announced today that it began production of its anti-SARS-CoV-2 hyperimmune immunoglobulin with specific antibodies for combating COVID-19. Barcelona-based Grifols touts the prevention drug, developed from the plasma of people who have overcome the disease, as the first specific drug developed to fight COVID-19, according to a news release. The company is producing the potential…
Regeneron launches clinical trial of COVID-19 antibody ‘cocktail’
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:REGN) announced today that it initiated the first clinical trial of its dual antibody cocktail for preventing COVID-19. The REGN-COV2 clinical program will include populations of hospitalized COVID-19 patients, non-hospitalized symptomatic COVID-19 patients, uninfected people in groups that have a high risk of exposure (healthcare workers or first responders, for example) and uninfected people…
Moderna to begin Phase 3 of COVID-19 vaccine study in July
Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA) announced today that it expects to begin dosing in Phase 3 of the clinical trial for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in July. The Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech company said in a news release that it finalized the Phase 3 study protocol for the mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine candidate based on feedback from the FDA. The…
New research suggests neutralizing antibodies could help against COVID-19
New findings from an international research team suggest that neutralizing antibodies could have a use as a preventative treatment or as a post-exposure therapy against COVID-19. Their latest findings, which drew on data gathered from Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab’s) Advanced Light Source (ALS) — suggest that antibodies derived from SARS survivors could potentially block…
Thermo Fisher Scientific touts new mass spectrometers
Thermo Fisher Scientific has added two mass spectrometers — the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 240 and Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 120 — to its Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris portfolio. The Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 240 mass spectrometer boasts the latest generation of system architecture and instrument control software to boost data acquisition and analysis capabilities for…
Insitro raises $143m Series B
Machine-learning-driven drug discovery and development company Insitro announced today that it raised $143 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing round. San Francisco-based Insitro said in a news release that it plans to use the funds to build its foundations of technology and automation, enabling data generation at a larger scale, expanding its capabilities for…
Merck, IAVI work to develop COVID-19 vaccine
Merck (NYSE:MRK) and IAVI announced today that they are collaborating to develop an investigational vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 for preventing COVID-19. The vaccine candidate is slated to use the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) technology used as the basis for Merck’s Ervebo Ebola Zaire virus vaccine, which was the first such vaccine to be approved for use…
FDA launches COVID-19 research initiative
The FDA has entered an agreement with healthcare analytics company Aetion to research urgent questions about COVID-19. The New York City-based company said the research will support FDA objectives to explore the natural history of the disease, as well as treatment and diagnostic patterns using relevant, novel data sources and analyzing these data according to well-established principles.…
FDA approves Phase 3 trial for coronavirus drug
Octapharma announced today that the FDA approved its investigational new drug (IND) application for a Phase 3 clinical trial for its drug therapy in COVID-19 patients. Octagam 10% [Immune Globulin Intravenous (Human)] therapy will be observed for efficacy and safety in use with COVID-19 patients with severe disease progression, according to a news release. The…
Fountain secures $6m to fund anti-aging research
Fountain Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company building a pipeline of therapeutics to treat age-related diseases by reversing cellular age, closed on an additional $6 million in a Series A, bringing its total to $11 million. Khosla Ventures led the round that drew capital from Nan Fung Life Sciences, the provider of initial $5 million in 2018.…
Phlow lands $354m government contract for COVID-19 medications
Phlow announced today that it received $354 million in U.S. government funding to manufacture essential medicines at risk of shortage, including those involved in the COVID-19 pandemic response. Richmond, Va.-based Phlow’s manufacturing is being funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the office of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response…
Moderna prices $1.3 public offering following positive COVID-19 vaccine results
Shortly after touting positive results from its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Moderna announced the pricing of an offering of 17.6 million shares of its common stock. The Cambridge, Mass.-based clinical-stage biotechnology company announced yesterday that it received positive interim clinical data from trials for its mRNA-1273 vaccine candidate against coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Get the full story at our sister site,…
Moderna reports positive early data out of COVID-19 vaccine trial
Moderna today touted positive interim clinical data from trials for its mRNA-1273 vaccine candidate against coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The Phase I study, led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), recorded positive early results from the first eight people tested, each of whom received two…
COVID-19 related products could get speedier patent review
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced a webpage to help small and micro businesses apply for streamlined consideration for products that require FDA approval for COVID-19 use. The COVID-19 Prioritized Examination Pilot Program, announced May 8, will allow up to 500 qualifying patent applications to be accepted for priority examination and be…