“There is a big need for a drug in outpatients. If you could treat them and keep them out of hospitals, that would be important and play a big role in getting us through this pandemic,” Romark Laboratories LC’s CEO, Marc Ayers, told BioWorld.
Senti Biosciences Inc. stands to receive more than $645 million in up-front, opt-in and milestone payments through a new collaboration and option agreement with Spark Therapeutics Inc.
Among a spate of COVID-19-related therapy developments to start the week, Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals Inc. produced positive phase II data of its monoclonal antibody, mavrilimumab, in treating non-mechanically ventilated patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia and hyperinflammation.
In science there are often too many choices to make. Nammi Therapeutics Inc.’s CEO, David Stover, told BioWorld that he makes narrowing therapeutic options a core company principle. The redundancy of immune regulatory pathways in cancer treatments is a case in point.
The FDA told Provention Bio Inc. that its BLA under priority review for teplizumab needs some work but the May 27 advisory committee meeting to discuss the application in full is still on the calendar.
Fibrogen Inc. said senior management’s prep for an upcoming FDA advisory committee meeting included a surprise. The internal review unearthed a primary cardiovascular safety analysis of roxadustat for treating anemia of chronic kidney disease (CKD) that included post-hoc changes to the phase III study’s stratification factors.
If these top-line phase III results were a grade card for 12- to 15-year-olds, they would be on the honor roll: The Pfizer Inc.-Biontech SE COVID-19 vaccine is 100% effective for the age group and produced robust antibody responses. The new results play out against a backdrop of increased production and big revenue estimates.
Full rights to TAK-169, a CD38-targeted engineered toxin body that Takeda Pharmaceuticals Co. and Molecular Templates Inc. have been developing, are going to Molecular Templates as is the therapy’s clinical development. Making way for the new candidate, Molecular is discontinuing development of MT-3724, which is in a phase II study for treating diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma but was placed on a partial clinical hold by the FDA after a treatment-related fatality in one of the subjects.
New top-line data from Scholar Rock Holding Group’s phase II Topaz trial of apitegromab (SRK-015) in patients with type 2 and type 3 spinal muscular atrophy generated enough proof-of-concept results for the company to plan on initiating a phase III for later this year. But the 12-month data didn’t stop the Cambridge, Mass.-based company’s stock (NASDAQ:SRRK) from struggling mightily on April 6 as shares closed 20.3% lower at $35.97 each.
