More than 10% of Americans suffer from chronic pain, and how to prevent acute pain from turning chronic has been a critical question in pain research. But according to a study published in the May 11, 2022, issue of Science Translational Medicine, that approach has it backwards. In several animal models of pain, the resolution of acute pain was an active process. Chronic pain happened when those active processes failed to occur.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have gained new insight into how different inflammatory conditions reinforce each other via trained innate immunity.
The deal that could bring IGM Biosciences Inc. more than $6 billion is 2022’s largest and cracks the BioWorld top 10 list as the ninth biggest ever. Sanofi SA and IGM agreed to develop, manufacture and commercialize immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibody agonists in treating cancer and immunology/inflammation targets. IGM is getting $150 million up front once the deal closes, which the company expects to happen in the second quarter of 2022.
Space travel has known effects on human health and biology. Some, such as loss of bone density, are well understood, while others, like inflammation, are not. Now, organ-on-a-chip maker Emulate Inc. is conducting experiments on the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory (ISS-NL) aimed at revealing clues to how the brain functions in microgravity.
At a recent lecture at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Mehta, who is chief of the laboratory of inflammation and cardiometabolic diseases at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and an adjunct professor of medicine at George Washington University, described his insights into the links between psoriasis, inflammation and cardiometabolic disease.
"My fondest hope is that maybe depression and other mental health disorders may be diagnosed by underlying cause, rather than categorized dualistically," Edward Bullmore, director of the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre, and head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, told his audience at the European Congress of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP). "I think it's much more aligned with the way that the rest of medicine has been working for some time."
Investigators working at Gladstone Institutes reported new insights into sleep disturbances and seizures that can be a late consequence of even mild traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and how we may one day best treat these conditions by targeting the complement pathway.
DUBLIN – Inotrem SA has received €45 million (US$53 million) in public funding commitments to move its Trem-1 inhibitor, nangibotide, into a phase II/III trial in COVID-19 patients who are critically ill and on ventilation.
While there is known to be an association between inflammation and depression, it is not known if there is cause and effect. Now, the power of the UK Biobank has been brought to bear to show that when all genetic, health and environmental factors are accounted for, people with depression have higher levels of inflammation in their bodies than controls.
DUBLIN – Abivax SA has started planning for a pivotal phase III program for its inflammatory bowel disease drug candidate, ABX-464, following a readout of top-line data from a phase IIb induction study in ulcerative colitis, in which the molecule attained the primary endpoint at all three dose levels tested. It demonstrated efficacy on a range of secondary endpoints, too, while its safety profile also appeared to be favorable.
