The European Medicines Agency’s scientific committee has issued a positive opinion for Pumarix, a mock-up vaccine that could be used in a new influenza pandemic. It is an adjuvanted vaccine that induces a response against the H5N1 antigen.
A group of US researchers has reported that breast cancer stem cells, which are thought to be resistant to current anti-cancer therapies, are stimulated by estrogen through a pathway that mirrors normal stem-cell development.
Compared with many other antibody companies, MorphoSys AG has taken the long route to therapeutic antibody development. Founded in 1992, the Munich-based company developed a library, a service business, and risk-sharing discovery partnerships with larger companies, before it brought its first proprietary antibody into the clinic in 2008. But could the proverbial tortoise be overtaking the hares?
Zealand Pharma A/S of Denmark has made an initial public offering of its shares on the Nasdaq OMX exchange in Copenhagen, one of the very few European biotechnology companies to seek a public listing in more than a year.
Advent Venture Partners LLP has raised £75 million for a new fund devoted exclusively to life science investments. The fund will invest primarily in early and mid-stage companies in the UK, Europe and the US.
Clavis Pharma ASA has a strategy for improving the performance of marketed cancer drugs that takes it into the realm of personalised medicine. This strategy is to apply a lipid vector technology to marketed drugs to improve their delivery to cancer cells. A companion diagnostic would then identify the patients for whom these drugs are likely to be most effective.
The European Medicines Agency is set to publish a new guideline advising drug developers on the regulatory requirements for monoclonal antibody-containing medicines that claim to be similar to other, previously marketed products.
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has signed a collaboration and licensing agreement with the Vienna-based F-Star Biotechnologische Forschungs-und Entwicklungsges to jointly discover new antibody-derived therapies.
Paion AG has published headline data from a Phase 2b clinical trial of its short-acting sedative remimazolam which, it says, showed the drug performed better than the standard of care, midazolam, in patients undergoing colonoscopy.
At the request of the US Food and Drug Administration, Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc has withdrawn the opioid, propoxyphene, from the US market. The drug trades under the names, Darvon and Darvocet.