Brii Biosciences Ltd. raised HK$2.482 billion (US$319 million) in its IPO in Hong Kong and will use the proceeds to support the development of its key assets, which includes programs for hepatitis B virus (HBV), HIV and drug-resistant infections.
Investigators at the Wistar Institute have identified biomarkers that could discriminate HIV-infected post-treatment controllers, that is, HIV-infected individuals who do not experience viral rebound after analytical treatment interruption.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria signed a cooperation and financing agreement to implement 10 initiatives in 2021 through 2023 aimed at addressing persistent challenges impeding global progress against the three diseases and protecting hard-won gains from new pandemics like COVID-19.
Viiv Healthcare Group has continued its quest for patient-friendly long-acting HIV drugs, signing a potential $740 million deal with Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. to develop injections that could be dosed more than six months apart.
With the July 25 PDUFA priority review date looming for Incyte Corp.’s retifanlimab as a second-line treatment for advanced or metastatic anal cancer, the FDA has one voting question for its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC): Should it hold off on its approval decision until more data are in from a phase III study?
Curing HIV remains a dream for now, but it is clearly not a pipe dream. One of the challenges for developing a vaccine is that there is no natural immune response to model such a vaccine on. Over time, an untreated HIV infection will almost certainly kill its host. However, there is a group of elite controllers – people who, although they cannot eliminate the virus, manage to keep it in check.
In 2020, the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) was the first medical conference to go virtual, with two days advance warning, when news of infections resulting from a Biogen Inc. conference with about 150 attendees made it abundantly clear that SARS-CoV-2 was circulating, well, probably everywhere.
Excision Biotherapeutics Inc.’s CEO is specific when he talks about his company’s therapies and what they may achieve: a functional cure. “When you treat someone and they become cancer free, you can’t use the world ‘cured’ because the cancer may come back decades later,” Daniel Dornbusch told BioWorld. “But you can talk about a functional cure, meaning the cancer didn’t come back for a very long time. It’s functionally cured for maybe 10, 20 or 30 years."
CAJICA, Colombia – A phase III trial for an HIV vaccine developed Janssen Vaccines & Prevention BV is finally moving forward in Latin America and elsewhere in the world after a delay of more than a year caused by slow regulatory progress and worsened by a string of COVID-19 lockdowns.
Despite challenges tossed at the phase III study of mitapivat from Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. by COVID-19, top-line data showed the oral therapy hit its primary endpoint in treating adults with pyruvate kinase (PK) deficiency who don’t receive regular transfusions.
