Senhwa Biosciences Inc., of Taipei, Taiwan, said casein kinase 2 (CK2) is the right target to aim at when developing a COVID-19 therapeutic treatment. The company’s silmitasertib is the only clinical-stage inhibitor of CK2, a kinase recently identified by researchers as being hijacked by SARS-CoV-2.
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Emmaus, Inovio, Melt, Merck, Novartis, Regulus, Relief, Ridgeback, Roche, Scynexis, Teva.
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Abbvie, Auris, Constant, Denali, Dimerix, Genentech, Krystal, Repare, Samus, Sanofi.
Thermo Fisher Scientific expanded its Globalaccess Sequencing Program to include oncology laboratories in addition to research labs working on COVID-19 studies. The company will subsidize a limited number of Genexus systems to help pathology laboratories around the world.
Diagnostics testing company Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings Inc. (Labcorp) saw its second-quarter revenue decline by 4% to $2.8 billion, but that still beat the Street consensus of $2.5 billion. Diagnostics revenue fell 3.9% year over year to $1.7 billion, but that was offset by solid demand for the company’s COVID-19 tests.
The U.S. Senate Finance Committee held the first of its two hearings on the supply chains for a variety of products vital to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While electoral politics were on full display during the hearing, a recurrent theme was the need to bring supply chains back to the Western Hemisphere as a solution to the fraudulent products shipped to the U.S. from Hong Kong and China.
Regulatory snapshots, including global submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Neocis, Nowdiagnostics.