Developing respiratory therapeutics for prophylaxis and treatment
With the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic still growing, many pharmaceutical companies are adapting their current R&D programmes to develop therapeutics or vaccines to help stop the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus causing the outbreak. Drug Target Review’s Hannah Balfour explores how Cidara is transferring its expertise in therapeutics for respiratory viruses to focus on developing a potential treatment for COVID-19 with its President and Chief Executive Officer, Dr Jeff Stein.
Henry Adewoye, MD, on the Phase I Trial of COM701 in Advanced Solid Tumors
In an interview with CancerNetwork®, Henry Adewoye, MD, chief medical officer at Compugen, discussed the study of COM701, which was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Virtual Meeting 2020, held from April 27-28, 2020. COM701 is a novel first-in-class immune checkpoint inhibitor that demonstrated encouraging preliminary antitumor activity with objective responses as a monotherapy and in combination with nivolumab (Opdivo) in hard to treat tumor types, such as primary peritoneal and microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.
Valneva banks $130M as Pfizer buys into Lyme disease vaccine program
Shares in Valneva SE rose by as much as 32% during early trading April 30 on news that Pfizer Inc. is paying $130 million up front to in-license its Lyme disease candidate vaccine, VLA-15. Valneva could also receive a further $35 million in development milestones and $143 million in early commercial milestones, as well as tiered sales royalties starting at 19%.
Clinical Improvement Observed in Narcolepsy Trial Evaluating Once-Nightly Sodium Oxybate Formulation
Positive topline data from the phase 3 REST-ON trial evaluating FT218 (Avadel), an investigational, once-nightly formulation of sodium oxybate, showed that the treatment led to clinically meaningful improvement in patients with narcolepsy.
Biopharmas work to wallop COVID-19 respiratory effects, keeping patients off ventilators
Another company focused on severe respiratory complications of COVID-19 is La Jolla, Calif.-based Calcimedica Inc., which started a phase IIa study with its small-molecule calcium release-activated calcium (CRAC) channel inhibitor, CM-4620-injectable emulsion (IE), in patients with severe pneumonia who are at risk for ARDS. The company received a “Study May Proceed” letter from the FDA earlier this month and the trial began April 8.
Rockefeller University, Cerevance Pursue Pooled Nuclei Sequencing to Target Brain Cell Types
A cell-targeting sequencing method developed at Rockefeller University is being used to find drug targets for neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Nuclear enriched transcript sort sequencings (NETSseq) is a sample preparation method that uses antibodies or RNA probes to latch on to the nuclei of pre-determined cells of interest, capturing pools of them for downstream transcriptome profiling or even chromatin accessibility profiling with next-generation sequencing.
New type of checkpoint inhibitor offers early promise against tumors, but will it last?
A new type of checkpoint inhibitor from an Israeli biotech company called Compugen is showing early signs of halting tumor growth in patients with advanced cancer, offering hope that more patients might one day benefit from cancer immunotherapy.
