News

MolMed SpA and Genenta Science SRL, both of Italy, have renewed and extended an oncology collaboration with a view to starting trials of a candidate drug that could treat both haematologic malignancies and solid tumours. Genenta has developed an ex-vivo immune-gene transfer technology to enable the targeting of immunomodulatory molecules to tumour-infiltrating monocytes and macrophages. The goal is to deliver an immunomodulatory molecule into the tumour microenvironment triggering an immune response against multiple tumour antigens.

Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, has resigned his position reportedly in order to spend more time with his family in Connecticut. The FDA job involved a weekly commute to Washington DC, a distance of about 277 miles.

Announced on 5 March, the resignation is expected to take effect in about a month. It was confirmed in a tweet by President Trump who praised Dr Gottlieb for his work leading the drug regulatory authority, a job that he has held since May 2017.

A male patient who was diagnosed with HIV infection in 2003 has experienced a remission from his disease after a haematopoietic stem cell transplant. The stem cell transplant was undertaken in order to treat a cancer. At the time the patient was on also on antiretroviral therapy to treat his HIV. The patient remained on antiretroviral drug therapy for 16 months after the transplant at which point the physicians stopped the drug therapy. Remarkably, the patient remained free of HIV.

Biogen Inc is to acquire Nightstar Therapeutics Plc, a gene therapy company spun out from the University of Oxford and financed by Syncona, which has a product in Phase 3 for the treatment of choroideremia, a rare retinal disorder. The US biotech company will pay $25.50 in cash for each share of Nightstar, valuing the company at approximately $800 million.

Sangamo Therapeutics Inc is readying a second generation of its zinc finger nuclease technology to use in an in vivo genome editing trial later this year. This is expected to provide further support for the company’s strategy of using engineered nucleases to correct DNA in patients with Hunter syndrome and other genetic diseases. Hunter syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that can lead to tissue and organ damage.

Calypso Biotech BV has completed a €20 million Series A round to advance a preclinical antibody for autoimmune indications into human studies. The financing round was announced on 20 February by INKEF Capital, which co-led the round together with Gilde Healthcare.

Belgium-based UCB SA has upgraded its medium-term sales forecast for core neurology and immunology products after a year of improved profitability and sales growth. During 2018 the company’s epilepsy product Vimpat (lacosamide) achieved sales of €1.1 billion with double-digit growth in the US, Europe and elsewhere.

An approach to drug payments, where the price of a new medicine is linked to its effectiveness, may enable patients suffering from cancer to get new treatments faster, according to Cancer Research UK.

The German Cancer Award 2019 has been given to Ugur Sahin, the co-founder and chief executive of BioNTech AG for his work on individualised cancer immunotherapies and in particular, the development and clinical testing of messenger RNA (mRNA)-based cancer vaccines tailored to an individual patient’s cancer mutation profile.

Syncona Ltd, an active investor in cell and gene therapy, has joined the Novartis Venture Fund to provide CHF 35 million (€31 million) in Series A funding to Anaveon AG, a Swiss start-up which is developing biologics for cancer.

Founded in December 2017, Anaveon has a preclinical product targeting the interleukin 2 (IL-2) receptor. The biologic is an agonist which is expected to enhance a patient’s immune system to respond to tumours and work better than other IL-2 products.