The FDA this week approved Scynexis’ ibrexafungerp tablets, now christened Brexafemme, to treat vaginal yeast infections. The green light marks the first approval in a new class of antifungal drugs in more than 20 years and propels Scynexis into the commercial realm with a potential blockbuster in tow.

But this orphan disease is one of the main reasons the team at Calliditas Therapeutics goes to work every day.

At Fountain, specifically, recent advances in AI have enabled us to spearhead a new unbiased approach to drug discovery and development.  We are using this platform to discover, refine, and advance a pipeline of disease-modifying therapies for age-related diseases, addressing both novel compounds and targets.

“However, the mere presence of antibodies to a virus does not necessarily mean an individual has protective immunity to reinfection,” Ian Chan, CEO of Boston-based biotech developer Abpro, told Healthline.

When Boehringer Ingelheim and OSE Immunotherapeutics teamed up in 2018 to develop OSE’s first-in-class checkpoint inhibitor, it was clear BI had high hopes for the immuno-oncology asset: The closely held German company paid about $18 million upfront but then piled on royalties and milestones, making the deal worth $1.4 billion to OSE.

While vaccines target specific viruses, Dutch start-up Leyden Labs is hunting down commonalities in viral families and working on the delivery of intranasal molecules that can protect humans from both known and future viruses.

Interim blinded data from an ongoing phase 2 clinical trial (NCT04098406) suggest treatment effect of catalytically active nanocrystalline gold (CNM-Au8; Clene Nanomedicine, Salt Lake City, UT) for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).