Drug Discovery

Some alarm appears to be growing amid the rush to develop COVID-19 vaccines, with two prominent critics warning that politics could harm the process. In a New. York Times op-ed this week, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Dr. Paul A. Offit of the University of Pennsylvania worried that potential pressure to produce good news for…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced today that its Janssen Pharmaceutical subsidiary has moved up first-in-human clinical trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to late July, versus the previously planned start in September. “Based on the strength of the preclinical data we have seen so far and interactions with the regulatory authorities, we have been able to…

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 (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…

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.…

CRISPR startup Mammoth Biosciences will partner with GlaxoSmithKline’s (NYSE:GSK) consumer healthcare division to develop a home-based diagnostic capable of detecting active SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The collaboration will use Mammoth Biosciences’ CRISPR-based Detectr  platform to design “guide-RNA” that can identify and signal the presence of viral strands obtained through a simple nasal swab, according to Mammoth…

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 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 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…

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 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…

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…

AI VIVO (Cambridge, UK) says it is looking for pharma and biotech companies interested in working on therapeutic candidates that its artificial intelligence has identified as “top-ranked” for COVID-19. The company says it has found that multiple groups around the world already are conducting clinical trials for 41 of the candidate drugs from its top-ranked…

The FDA this afternoon issued an emergency use authorization for the investigational antiviral drug remdesivir to treat severely ill COVID-19 patients. The authorization for the drug, made by Gilead Sciences’ (NSDQ:GILD), will allow both adults and children to  be treated with the remdesivir, the first drug believed to have any effect on the virus that has sickened…

The National Institutes of Health and its foundation announced that, in collaboration with multiple biopharmaceutical companies and government agencies, they will develop an international strategy for coordinating research responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. The collaboration includes the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the Centers for Disease Control…

Dr. Anthony Fauci said this morning that hundreds of millions of doses of a vaccine for COVID-19 could be ready by January. In an interview on the Today Show, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that a vaccine candidate is in the first phase of a clinical trial. If the second…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) shares dipped today despite first-quarter results that topped the consensus forecast. The New Brunswick, N.J.-based company posted profits of $5.8 billion, or $2.17 per share, on sales of $20.7 billion for the three months ended March 29, 2020, for a 54.6% bottom-line gain on sales growth of 3.3%. Get the full story…

The National Institutes of Health today announced the publishing of new COVID-19 treatment guidelines, and the expert panel producing the guidelines says no drug has yet been proven safe and effective against the virus. NIH has the new guidelines posted online at covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov — and says it will update the guidelines often as new peer-reviewed…

Sanofi and GSK recently announced that they have signed a letter of intent to collaborate on an adjuvanted vaccine for COVID-19 — with a goal of having the vaccine available by the second half of 2021. Sanofi is contributing its S-protein COVID-19 antigen. The company’s recombinant DNA technology produced an exact genetic match to proteins…

CRISPR-startup Mammoth Biosciences will file for an emergency use application from the FDA after publishing a study in Nature Biotechnology that suggests its platform can detect SARS-CoV-2 from a respiratory swab RNA extracts in less than 45 minutes. The company says the paper contains the first peer-reviewed data using CRISPR diagnostics for COVID-19. In a…

BioSig Technologies (NSDQ:BSGM) announced today that it is beginning a Phase II clinical trial at Mayo Clinic for Vicromax as a treatment for COVID-19. ViralClear Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of BioSig, updated its clinical development program for the Vicromax treatment which is slated to be used in a trial under Dr. Andrew Badley, the professor and chair…

Clara Health, a company connecting patients to clinical trials, is partnering with two Silicon Valley tech leaders to create a free public health initiative that connects people with clinical trials targeting COVID-19. World Without COVID will help COVID-19-positive and -negative people find trials testing new diagnostics, treatments and vaccine discovery. Raj Kapoor, chief strategy officer…

Bausch Health (NYSE:BHC) announced today that it initiated a clinical trial program in Canada to investigate the use of Virazole for treating COVID-19. With today’s announcement, Bausch joins Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) and Care Access Research, which both announced clinical testing of coronavirus therapies last week. Bausch’s Virazole is currently approved in the U.S. and Canada, among other…

Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO) this week said it acquired Celsee for an undisclosed amount. Celsee develops instruments and consumables for the isolation, detection and analysis of single cells. The company’s Genesis System allows scientists to isolate, analyze and interpret cellular behavior and collect cell-based information for improved results in single-cell cytometry, single-cell transcriptomics, single-cell multiomics, rare-cell enrichment…

Miele — a manufacturer of laboratory glassware washers — recently unveiled six new models for North America that the company says offer maximum cleanliness, reliability, consistency and flexibility to meet stringent safety and sanitary demands of productive laboratories. The new models from Miele include a plug and play, 115V under-counter washer (PLW 8505), as well…