News

Sanofi SA has expanded a collaboration with CytoReason Ltd, the Israeli technology company, to include inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in a project that uses artificial intelligence to discover novel disease targets. The two companies have been working together since 2021, initially to identify targets for treating asthma.

IBD describes disorders of tissues in the digestive tract. It includes ulcerative colitis, which involves inflammation of the lining of the large intestine and rectum, and Crohn’s disease, involving inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract.

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a complete response letter (CRL) to Eli Lilly and Company for its application for an accelerated approval of the investigative treatment for Alzheimer’s disease donanemab. A CRL is a formal notice to a company in which the agency explains why it cannot accept an application for a drug approval, usually citing deficiencies in the application itself. Donanemab is a monoclonal antibody that targets beta amyloid plaque in the brain for the treatment of patients with early symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease.

A Phase 3 trial of a candidate vaccine to prevent infection from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has failed and the clinical trial is being discontinued, Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies announced on 18 January. The decision was taken on the advice of the study’s independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board which concluded that the vaccine was not effective in preventing HIV infection compared with a placebo. No safety issues related to the vaccine were identified.

The Roche Group has reported the success of a combination therapy in reducing the risk of cancer recurrence in patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma. A Phase 3 trial which combined the immune checkpoint inhibitor Tecentriq (atezolizumab) and Avastin (bevacizumab) and was administered as an adjuvant treatment after surgery, showed a statistically significant improvement in recurrence-free survival in patients at an increased risk of their disease returning.

The UK biotech, TC BioPharm (Holdings) Plc, has announced a research collaboration with the MD Anderson Cancer Center in the US to investigate how gamma delta T cells can be further mobilised to fight cancer. The Scotland-based company has already reported positive data from an early clinical trial of a gamma delta T cell product in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). As this trial continues, it will also be working with researchers at MD Anderson, which is part of the University of Texas, to better understand how gamma delta T cells behave in patients.

Sanofi SA is to increase the capital available to Sanofi Ventures, its evergreen investment fund, in order to support small companies with promising technologies. The capital injection will raise the sums available to the fund to $750 million. The fund currently has 50 companies in its portfolio, many of which have ongoing research and development collaborations with the parent company.

BioNTech SE, the Germany-based vaccine and immunotherapy company, is to take full control of InstaDeep Ltd having made an equity investment in the company in January 2022. InstaDeep is a UK-based technology company that specialises in artificial intelligence and machine learning. BioNTech has a messenger RNA (mRNA) platform and was responsible, with Pfizer, for commercialising the first Covid-19 vaccine. InstaDeep has its headquarters in London, with offices in Paris, France and four other cities in the Middle East and Africa.

Asklepios BioPharmaceutical Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bayer AG, has entered into a multi-year research collaboration and option agreement with ReCode Therapeutics Inc. Under the agreement, the companies will work together to discover genetic medicines that precisely target a disease. This will be done by developing technology for the use of single vectors as delivery vehicles for gene editing and DNA cargoes.

Sanofi SA has expanded a collaboration with Innate Pharma SA giving it access to new assets in the field of natural kill (NK) cell antibody development. The French multinational has been working with Innate since 2016 and will now have rights to a programme targeting an immune checkpoint molecule known as B7H3 which is overexpressed in a number of solid tumours. Sanofi will also have an option to add up to two additional molecules to its repertoire of cancer targets.

Germany-based BioNTech SE, which together with Pfizer Inc commercialised the first Covid-19 vaccine, has entered into a partnership with the UK government to research and develop mRNA vaccines for other diseases. The multi-year collaboration will include the development of vaccines for cancer and infectious diseases. For cancer, the goal is to be able to provide personalised cancer therapies for up to 10,000 patients by the end of 2030, either in clinical trials or as authorised treatments.