SK Bioscience Co. Ltd. signed a simple agreement for a future equity (SAFE) deal totaling $2 million with Hingham, Mass.-based Sunflower Therapeutics PBC on July 25 to secure both Sunflower’s equity and its yeast-based protein manufacturing technology. The conditional agreement will grant SK Bioscience future equity rights in Sunflower without the need for immediate valuation, allowing for minimal investment.
Many respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease vaccines are for older adults but Merck & Co. Inc.’s monoclonal antibody, MK-1654 (clesrovimab), which just produced positive top-line phase IIb/III data, aims at a far smaller and younger market. Data for protecting healthy preterm and full-term infants from RSV disease show the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial hit all its primary efficacy and safety endpoints, including the incidence of RSV-associated medically attended lower respiratory infection for 150 days compared to placebo.
The industry is looking, with renewed hope, to the “promise” of messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics for a wide range of diseases beyond COVID-19, and not only in vaccine form but also for gene and cell therapies.
CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. has received clearance from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) to conduct clinical trials in China with SYS-6016, the company’s mRNA respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine.
The industry is looking, with renewed hope, to the “promise” of messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics for a wide range of diseases beyond COVID-19, and not only in vaccine form but also for gene and cell therapies.
Many patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or frontotemporal dementia (FTD) harbor the (G4C2)n pathogenic repeat expansion in the C9orf72 gene, which leads to aggregating dipeptide proteins, mainly poly-glycine-alanine (poly-GA).
Hillevax Inc. is turning its attention to preventing moderate or severe acute gastroenteritis events (AGEs) in adults with norovirus after the phase IIb NEST-IN1 trial testing virus-like particle-based vaccine HIL-214 in infants missed its primary and secondary endpoints, news that sent shares of the company (NASDAQ:HLVX) plummeting 88% to close July 8 at $1.64, a significant drop from the IPO price of $17 two years ago.
Curevac AG is casting off the deadweight of its pandemic push to translate its mRNA technology into a marketed COVID-19 vaccine, in a new €1.45 billion (US$1.6 billion) deal in which GSK plc will acquire full rights to infectious disease vaccines the two were co-developing.
South Korea’s SK Bioscience Co. Ltd. has entered a cross-shareholding acquisition deal with Germany’s Klocke Pharma-Service GmbH to acquire its contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), IDT Biologika Corp.
Shigella flexneri is the leading cause of endemic diarrhea and dysentery in some countries with low-to-middle incomes. There is still a lack of a licensed vaccine against this pathogen.
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