Belgium-based Biocartis NV has joined the growing number of companies developing diagnostics for the early detection of infection by the Ebola virus. The company is developing the test in association with Janssen Diagnostics whose pharmaceutical affiliate is working on a vaccine for the disease.
A widely prescribed monoclonal antibody for patients with wet age-related macular degeneration, Lucentis (ranibizumab), has been approved in the US for a new indication – diabetic retinopathy in patients with diabetic macular oedema.
Sanofi SA expects that earnings per share this year will be stable to slightly higher against a background of change affecting its diabetes portfolio. The company’s new insulin glargine Toujeo is under regulatory review with a decision expected in the US in the first quarter.
2014 was a year of growth for AstraZeneca Plc as the company restocked its late-stage portfolio and invested in collaborations that will strengthen its core therapeutic areas of cardiovascular and metabolic medicines, respiratory drugs and oncology. Revenue was up by 3% on a currency adjusted basis. But 2015 is expected to be tougher as generic competition emerges in the US for Nexium, the proton pump inhibitor that was a pillar of the company’s sales for many years.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc finished 2014 with turnover and operating profit broadly lower compared with a year earlier on the back of a drop in respiratory medicine sales in the US. Global vaccine and consumer healthcare sales also declined.
Novo Nordisk A/S , the largest manufacturer of diabetes products, encountered a smaller rise in revenue in 2014 for the second consecutive year as the impact of Obamacare continued to put pressure on price increase in the company’s largest market.
Enrolment has stopped in a Wellcome Trust-funded trial of an experimental treatment for the Ebola virus in Liberia following a significant fall in new cases of the infection, the Trust announced on 3 February. The drug’s producer, Chimerix Inc, had previously said it would no longer support the trial.
A senior official in Britain’s Conservative-led government has outlined a policy for supporting the biotech industry that rests on aligning the clinical assets of the National Health Service more closely with some the newest technologies emerging from industry.
Ascendis Pharma A/S of Denmark has issued 6.9 million shares in the United States at $18 per share, generating net proceeds of $111.5 million. In early trading on 3 February 2015 the shares traded at $19.08 on the Nasdaq, representing a 6.0% premium.
The buzz at the Phacilitate Cell & Gene Therapy Forum in Washington DC on 26 to 28 January was that gene therapy will become a mainstream activity in the global pharmaceutical industry over the next five years, driven in part by the new gene-modified cell therapies and genome editing.