T-SCCC will support initiatives seeking to ensure success of organ transplants for patients WILMINGTON, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– The PPD clinical research business of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, has been granted a five-year award to provide a Transplantation Statistical and Clinical Coordinating Center for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health in the United States. This center will offer a broad range of support services critical to the design, development, execution and analysis of NIAID transplantation clinical trials and research. According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, the non-profit serving as the nation’s transplant system under contract with the federal government, more than 40,000 organ transplants were performed in 2022, setting an annual record, with total kidney transplants exceeding 25,000 for the first time ever. Meanwhile, the Health Resources & Services Administration within the U.S. Department ...
Dive Brief Boston Scientific on Thursday received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for a new heart ablation device to treat atrial fibrillation, according to a company announcement. The POLARx Cryoablation System can accommodate two balloon sizes in one catheter, which Boston Scientific said allows physicians to tailor care to individual patients. The device has been selling well in Europe and Japan, where it is cleared for use, CEO Mike Mahoney said in an earnings call last month. Boston Scientific has been competing with companies like Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic, which are also bringing new cardiac ablation devices to market. Dive Insight Cryoablation is a minimally invasive procedure that uses a balloon catheter to freeze tissue near the pulmonary vein. Scars then block irregular electric signals that can cause atrial fibrillation. Switching between two balloon sizes, clinicians can adjust the device to a patient’s anatomy during a procedure, ...
Patients often experience functional decline after an ischemic stroke, especially due to the brain’s resistance to regenerate after damage. Yet, there is still potential for recovery as surviving neurons can activate repair mechanisms to limit and even reverse the damage caused by the stroke. How is it triggered though? In a study published recently in Neuron, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) provided new insights regarding this question by identifying a new mechanism. They discovered that neurons surrounding the area of cell death secrete lipids that can trigger brain-autonomous neural repair after ischemic brain injury. An ischemic stroke occurs when the blood supply to the brain is blocked and results in the death of brain cells. This condition is life-threatening, and patients will likely develop functional disabilities. Although the adult brain can self-repair, the underlying mechanisms need further clarification. Inflammation of the brain contributes to the effects of ...
After Pfizer allegedly fired a compliance manager for raising the flag on potential fraud activity in China, the former employee is hitting back. Frank Han, the former director of global compliance analytics at Pfizer, has filed a civil complaint against the drugmaker. In the California lawsuit, Han claims he was terminated for identifying potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) issues within the company. Han worked for Pfizer from May 2017 to November 2022, according to the court documents. Back in 2021, Han says he discovered that Pfizer had spent “over ten times the amount of money” on potentially influential government officials (PIGOs) in China than the company had spent on those officials in other countries, the court documents state. Specifically, Pfizer spent $168 million on PIGOs in China between the second quarter of 2019 and the third quarter of 2021, Han’s work found. That compared to $12 million in the ...
Amongst fierce competition in the obesity space, Novo Nordisk has spent $1bn to acquire Inversago Pharma to shore up its weight loss treatment portfolio. The acquisition is expected to be completed by the end of 2023 and will hit the billion-dollar mark, subject to developmental and commercial milestones. The deal, which comes a month after Eli Lilly acquired Versanis and its lead weight loss candidate, bimagrumab, in a $1.9bn deal, will include Inversago’s lead asset INV-202, an oral cannabinoid receptor type-1 (CB1) inverse agonist. Novo Nordisk said it intends to use the candidate for patients with obesity and obesity-related complications. Canada-based Inversago demonstrated the weight loss potential of the candidate in a Phase Ia trial by blocking the CB1 receptor, which plays an important role in appetite regulation and metabolism. INV-202 is currently in a Phase II trial for diabetic kidney disease (NCT05514548). Prior to the 10 August announcement, Novo ...
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has announced its advice in relation to details surrounding the eligibility of this autumn’s COVID-19 booster vaccine. As the UK COVID-19 vaccination programme enters its third autumn season, the Committee has advised offering the booster to those at high risk of serious disease and who are therefore more likely to benefit from the vaccination. This includes all adults aged 65 years and older, residents in care homes for older adults, those aged six months to 64 years in a clinical risk group, those aged 16 to 64 years who are carers and staff working in care homes for adults. The COVID-19 booster vaccine helps to protect against severe illness, hospitalisations and deaths from COVID-19. Dr Mary Ramsay, director of public health programmes at the UK Health Security Agency, said the COVID-19 virus is “circling more widely over the winter months, with the ...
Novartis has shared positive top-line results from two late-stage studies evaluating its Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, remibrutinib, in patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) whose symptoms are inadequately controlled by H1-antihistamines. Affecting 40 million people worldwide, CSU is a debilitating and unpredictable condition characterised by the occurrence of itchy hives and/or deep tissue swelling that lasts for six weeks or longer. H1-antihistamines are the first-line treatment for the condition; however, approximately 60% of patients are inadequately controlled by these alone and continue to live with the distressing symptoms of CSU. Novartis’ remibrutinib works by blocking the cascade of BTK, an enzyme central to the release of histamine and, when spontaneously activated, plays a critical role in the symptoms associated with CSU. The ongoing phase 3 REMIX-1 and REMIX-2 trials met their primary endpoint of absolute change from baseline in weekly urticaria activity score (UAS7) at week 12, demonstrating clinically ...
By Tristan Manalac Pictured: Illumina signage at California office/iStock, Georgejason During its second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, Illumina lowered its financial outlook for fiscal year 2023 and is now only expecting revenue growth of 1% compared to the previous forecast of 7% to 10%. The news comes as the DNA sequencing company grapples with an activist investor, leadership shake-ups and strong antitrust pushback over its acquisition deal with GRAIL. In the second quarter, Illumina generated $1.18 billion in revenue, representing a modest but nevertheless positive 1% increase from its earnings during the same period last year. Without taking exchange rates into consideration, Illumina’s revenue grew 3%. Illumina also reported financial results for GRAIL, which it moved to buy for $8 billion in September 2020. The cancer detection company made $22 million in the second quarter, up from $12 million during the same timeframe last year. Despite better revenues, Illumina is ...
By Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber and Leroy Leo (Reuters) – The World Health Organization on Wednesday classified the EG.5 coronavirus strain circulating in the United States and China as a “variant of interest” but said it did not seem to pose more of a threat to public health than other variants. The fast-spreading variant, the most prevalent in the United States with an estimated more than 17% of cases, has been behind upticks in the virus across the country and also has been detected in China, South Korea, Japan and Canada, among other countries. “Collectively, available evidence does not suggest that EG.5 has additional public health risks relative to the other currently circulating Omicron descendent lineages,” the WHO said in a risk evaluation. A more comprehensive evaluation of the risk posed by EG.5 was needed, it added. COVID-19 has killed more than 6.9 million people globally, with more than 768 million confirmed ...
A new research perspective was published in Oncotarget’s Volume 14 on August 7, 2023, entitled, “CDK9 INHIBITORS: a promising combination partner in the treatment of hematological malignancies.” In their new perspective, researchers Daniel Morillo, Gala Vega and Victor Moreno from Hospital Fundación Jiménez Díaz discuss Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK) in hematological malignancies. CDKs belong to a family of serine/threonine kinases that need to form heterodimeric complexes with cyclins to perform their functions. These kinases are involved in multiple processes within cells, including cell cycle, apoptosis, transcription and differentiation. These kinases are often overexpressed in different malignancies, making them potential targets for new drugs. Most hematological malignancies are characterized by overexpression of certain cancer-promoting genes, such as MYC, MCL1 and cyclin D1. Preclinical studies in animal models have shown that CDK9 inhibitors suppress the transcription of these anti-apoptotic and pro-survival proteins, and suggest their potential synergism with other drugs. In its first ...
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