Vaccine immunization has dramatically reduced the morbidity and mortality of invasive bacterial infectious diseases such as bloodstream infections. Although a large number of studies have demonstrated that immune protection requires vaccine-induced antibody production, human beings still lack a clear understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms of how vaccines provide immune protection. The current international consensus is that vaccines provide immune protection by activating phagocytes in the spleen and blood circulation to remove pathogens that invade the bloodstream. Recently, Jingren Zhang’s group and Linqi Zhang’s group at Tsinghua University School of Medicine, together with Haifa Zheng’s group at Beijing Minhai Biotechnology Co., Ltd, published a paper in Science Translational Medicine titled “Liver macrophages and sinusoidal endothelial cells The research paper, entitled Liver macrophages and sinusoidal endothelial cells execute vaccine-elicited capture of invasive bacteria, reveals that the liver is the main organ that executes vaccine-elicited immunoprotection, and elucidates the molecular mechanism ...
Suzhou, China, January 2, 2024 – Suzhou MediLink Therapeutics (“MediLink”) announced today that it has reached a global cooperation and licensing agreement with Roche. The two parties will collaborate to develop a next-generation antibody-drug conjugate product candidate YL211 (“c-MET ADC”) targeting mesenchymal epidermal transforming factor (c-MET) for the treatment of solid tumors. Under the terms of the agreement, Roche will obtain exclusive rights to the global development, manufacturing and commercialization of YL211. MediLink will work with the China Innovation Center of Roche (CICoR) to promote the YL211 project into phase I clinical trials, and Roche will be responsible for further development and commercialization work on a global scale. Roche will pay MediLink an upfront payment and near-term milestone payments of US$50 million, in addition to nearly US$1 billion in potential milestone payments for development, registration and commercialization, as well as future gradient royalties based on global annual net sales. About ...
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said it has added a new malaria vaccine to its list of prequalified vaccines, marking a “significant milestone” in the prevention of the mosquito-borne disease. R21/Matrix-M, developed by the University of Oxford and the Serum Institute of India, is now the second malaria vaccine to be prequalified by the organisation following its prequalification of the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine in July 2022. Malaria places a particularly high burden on the African Region, where nearly half a million children die from the disease every year. Despite high demand, WHO outlined that the available supply of RTS,S has been limited and expects the addition of R21 to result in sufficient vaccine supply for children living in areas where malaria is a significant public health risk. Dr Kate O’Brien, director of WHO’s department of immunisation, vaccines and biologicals, said the decision marked “a huge stride in global health”. “This ...
In 2022, fueled by its powerhouse COVID products, Pfizer became the first company in the history of the biopharma industry to top $100 billion in annual revenue. What would the New York drugmaker do for an encore? In 2023, Pfizer went from generating the most sales in the industry to gaining the most approvals. With seven FDA nods in 2023, Pfizer had more than double that of any other company. It’s also more than twice as many as every drugmaker over each of the last three years. You need to go back to 2019, when Novartis scored six approvals, to find a company that approached what Pfizer accomplished in 2023. Pfizer’s splurge included four approvals in a dizzying five weeks in May and June. And all but one of the seven products has been pegged by analysts as a potential blockbuster. Two of the newly approved Pfizer treatments were acquired ...
AbbVie is entering 2024 with a foothold in the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) field thanks to its late-2023 buyout of ImmunoGen worth more than $10 billion. But according to a new securities filing, AbbVie didn’t pursue the cancer drugmaker until other suitors were already at the negotiating table. ImmunoGen’s recent round of M&A deliberations began in April, according to the filing, when a company only identified as “Party A” reached out to CEO Mark Enyedy expressing interest in a potential transaction. Before that, ImmunoGen had been routinely evaluating potential opportunities for deals of various types, but the interest from Party A struck up a round of talks that ultimately led to the sale. However, Party A’s note of interest came without a proposed purchase price, a move that the company’s advisors at Goldman Sachs and Lazard called “unusual but not unprecedented.” Before the talks moved along, ImmunoGen presented its first-quarter earnings ...
Over half of maternal deaths occurring in hospitals are attributed to sepsis, a critical condition where an infection spreads beyond local tissue containment, leading to organ failure. Maternal or perinatal sepsis is a significant health concern globally, affecting more than 20 million women and resulting in approximately 17,000 deaths each year. Identifying the infectious agents responsible for these cases is often a complex task. While blood cultures are the preferred diagnostic method, they frequently yield low positive results. Other specimens like vaginal swabs have limited clinical usefulness, and obtaining microbiological cultures from the uterine cavity for antimicrobial guidance is typically challenging. Now, a new study of microbiology specimens used to investigate maternal sepsis has demonstrated that placental swabs could play a vital role in informing antimicrobial therapy decisions. The study performed by researchers from the University of Limerick (Limerick, Ireland) involved the analysis of nearly 2,000 specimens collected over five ...
Millions of people across the world are diagnosed with colorectal cancer and endometrial cancer each year. A significant number of patients with these cancers exhibit mismatch repair deficiency, a genetic anomaly characterized by errors in DNA due to the absence of specific repair proteins. This deficiency hampers DNA repair capabilities, potentially leading to various cancer types. Prior studies have indicated that patients with this condition often show positive responses to immunotherapy, which leverages the body’s immune system to combat cancer. Now, a new study has broadened the scope of patients who might benefit from this treatment approach. A research team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, MA, USA) conducted an analysis involving 1,655 patients with either colorectal or endometrial cancer. These patients underwent both immunohistochemistry, the prevailing standard test for this genetic state, and next-generation sequencing tests. Immunohistochemistry detects mutations impacting the antigen, while next-generation sequencing provides a more comprehensive ...
Biomarkers, electronic health records (EHR), genomic data, imaging data, labs, social media, wearable sensors, and more provide enormous new sources of RWD that can aid in new discoveries for the quality, efficacy, and safety of new drug therapies. By DAVID BLACKMAN Clinical research is in the midst of a data explosion, and that’s a good thing. Technological advances are enabling access to secure and de-identified data sources for researchers, and the optimization of this data holds enormous potential for conducting clinical trials more efficiently, both from a cost and timeline perspective. The incorporation of real-world data (RWD), data gathered from actual patient experiences, in many ways represents an important step toward a fundamentally better understanding of states of disease and health. Biomarkers, electronic health records (EHR), genomic data, imaging data, labs, social media, wearable sensors, and more provide enormous new sources of RWD that can aid in new discoveries for ...
Here is a selection of recent executive hires, promotions and layoffs occurring across the healthcare industry. By KATIE ADAMS This roundup will be published monthly. It is meant to highlight some of healthcare’s recent hiring news and is not intended to be comprehensive. If you have news about an executive appointment, resignation or layoff that you would like to share for this roundup or the MedCity Moves podcast, please reach out to moves@medcitynews.com. Here is a selection of recent executive hires, promotions, departures and layoffs occurring across the healthcare industry. Hires Aledade, an independent primary care network focused on value-based care, brought Rosemary Weldon onto its team as its new chief product officer. She spent the last decade at CVS Health, where she most recently served as vice president of digital health product management. Amgen welcomed James Bradner to its C-suite, where he now serves as chief scientific officer and ...
(Reuters) – A U.S. court on Friday upheld a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) order to block IQVIA’s acquisition of DeepIntent, a healthcare advertising firm, as it may harm competition. DeepIntent, owned by Propel Media, a digital media and advertising company, entered into an agreement with U.S. headquartered IQVIA in 2022 with the intent to facilitate seamless communication between patients and healthcare providers. Earlier this year, the FTC intervened to block IQVIA and DeepIntent’s proposed merger so as to prevent increased concentration in health care programmatic advertising. The merger would harm competition and would lead to increased prices for consumers, and hurt patients, FTC had said. DeepIntent’s chief executive officer previously in an open letter said that the company would walk away from the deal and would remain an independent company had the regulator won the block. The financial terms of the deal are not known. Speaking in favor of the ...
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