The new director of the U.S. NIH, Monica Bertagnolli, has set out the prospectus for her tenure, saying she intends to apply the agency’s $47 billion per annum budget to reverse the decline in health and life expectancy in the U.S.
The biological processes giving rise to the central nervous system symptoms of long COVID remain a mystery. But multiple studies suggest they do not appear to be a result of a direct viral infection of brain tissue. The latest such research, which appeared online in Nature Neuroscience on Feb. 16, 2024, demonstrated that local immune response in brain tissues persisted long after SARS-CoV-2 virus had disappeared.
The biological processes giving rise to the central nervous system symptoms of long COVID remain a mystery. But multiple studies suggest they do not appear to be a result of a direct viral infection of brain tissue. The latest such research, which appeared online in Nature Neuroscience on Feb. 16, 2024, demonstrated that local immune response in brain tissues persisted long after SARS-CoV-2 virus had disappeared.
Kalvista Pharmaceuticals Inc. is promising to “change the paradigm” in the treatment of hereditary angioedema, after announcing positive phase III data for its oral on-demand kallikrein inhibitor sebetralstat. Rather than waiting four to five hours to self-administer therapy, as is the case for approved injectable on-demand therapies, there was a median time to dosing of 10 minutes after the start of an attack in the ongoing open label extension trial and a median time to dosing of 41 minutes in the 136-patient placebo-controlled phase 3 trial.
Medicxi is spinning six of its early stage companies into an immuno-dermatology specialist and turbocharging development with a $100 million seed round.
Redx Pharma plc has closed its biggest transaction to date, selling a preclinical KRAS inhibitor program to Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc in a potential $880 million deal. Of that, $10 million will be paid up front, with the balance to come in development and commercialization milestones. For any product that makes it to market, Redx will in addition receive tiered mid-single digit percentage royalties.
More than 30 years after entering the scene as a first-generation monoclonal antibody pioneer, Morphosys AG is to be acquired by Novartis AG for €2.7 billion (US$2.9 billion). The all-cash deal, announced after Nasdaq closed on Feb. 5, will see Novartis paying €68 per share, a premium of 94% to the average daily price in the month leading up to Jan. 25, when rumors of a takeover started swirling.
Innate immunity specialist Calluna Pharma Inc. has raised €75 million (US$81 million) in a series A to take forward neutralizing antibodies targeted against damage-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) proteins that are released when cells are injured, or attacked by a pathogen.
The EU’s proposed update of its pharmaceutical legislation will break the model of small companies acting as the vehicle for translating Europe’s rich research base for onward development by pharma, according to an analysis looking specifically at the impact the new rules would have on the biotech sector.
After almost 10 years on the market, the EMA is to withdraw its conditional approval of the Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment Translarna (ataluren), after concluding there is still not enough evidence of its effectiveness.