Bimekizumab, a monoclonal antibody directed against interleukin-17A and interleukin-17F, has outperformed two marketed products in separate Phase 3 trials of patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, a chronic inflammatory skin disease for which there is no cure.
The trial results were published in separate articles in The New England Journal of Medicine on 23 April 2021.
A new US company with technology for developing tissue-targeted gene therapies for multiple diseases, has launched with $140 million in venture capital financing and collaboration income from AbbVie Inc. Capsida Biotherapeutics Inc is based on technology developed by Viviana Gradinaru and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in the US.
Adcendo ApS, a Danish company founded in 2017 to develop antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology, has raised €51 million in a Series A financing – the largest Series A round for a Danish biotech company. Adcendo is developing ADCs directed against a cell surface receptor which is understood to be overexpressed on several non-epithelial cancers including sarcomas, glioblastomas and subsets of acute myeloid leukaemia. Expression is restricted in healthy individuals.
AstraZeneca Plc increased its revenue by 15% in the first quarter, enabling it to spend more on research and development as well as the manufacture of a Covid-19 vaccine developed with the University of Oxford. The company also advanced its proposed $39 billion acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc, a US specialty pharmaceutical company. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.
Demand for the immunology drug Dupixent was the main driver behind the financial performance of Sanofi SA in the first quarter, which otherwise experienced sales declines for legacy medicines and drugs for neurological diseases. Group sales were €8.59 billion for the quarter, representing a decline of 4.3% from a year earlier. However, on a constant exchange rate basis, sales rose by 2.4%.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc ended the first quarter with declines in both turnover and operating profit. However the pipeline generated three regulatory approvals in the quarter and the company initiated Phase 3 trials in new products for respiratory syncytial (RSV) virus, asthma, and a prospective vaccine for Covid-19.
Novartis reported a narrow 1% increase in group sales to $12.4 billion in the first quarter, held back by its Sandoz generics division which encountered price competition and weak retail demand. Consumers made forward purchases of generic medicines at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, but then demand fell off sharply in the first quarter of this year.
A new antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) has received US approval to treat patients with a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma after showing an overall response rate of 48.3% in a pivotal Phase 2 trial. Zynlonta (loncastuximab tesirine) was authorised by the Food and Drug Administration as a single-agent treatment for diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) – the first single-agent ADC for this disease. Patients in the trial had already received two or more lines of systemic therapy, but these treatments had failed.
An antibody treatment for the rare autoimmune disorder, neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder, has received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency following two studies showing that the therapy reduced the chance of disease relapse. The treatment, Enspryng (satralizumab), was developed by the Roche Group. It targets the interleukin-6 receptor which is believed to play a role in the inflammation associated with the disease.
Enspryng was reviewed for adults and adolescents who are positive for the pathogenic antibodies, AQP4, an indicator of the disease.
A small molecule drug that activates a component of the innate immune system could play a role in enhancing radiation therapy for the treatment of cancers, according to a study published in Nature Communications on 19 April 2021. The study, conducted by Yale University in the US and F-star Therapeutics Ltd, co-located in the UK and US, looked at the role of STING (stimulator of interferon genes) in regulating tumour cell survival.