By Kate Goodwin Pictured: Boehringer Ingelheim building/iStock, Sundry Photography Boehringer Ingelheim is striking a deal to leverage artificial intelligence for some of the hardest to treat cancers. Phenomic AI announced a collaboration agreement with the pharma giant Wednesday. The Toronto and Boston-based biopharma is getting a $9 million upfront payment with another potential $500 million on the line in milestones and royalties to discover targets for stroma-rich cancers. The stroma-rich cancer category is among the most difficult to treat. Including types like colorectal and pancreatic, the tumor stroma in these cancers provides a hard-to-penetrate barrier around the tumor that both protects the cancer and helps feed it. Phenomic’s platform is focused on targets that can break through the stroma to ...
By Tristan Manalac Pictured: Eli Lilly’s Biotechnology Center in California Eli Lilly on Tuesday signed a license and collaboration agreement with Tokyo-based biotech PRISM BioLab to discover and develop small molecule inhibitors of protein-protein interactions. Under the terms of the deal, Lilly will make an upfront payment and pledges up to $660 million in preclinical, clinical and commercial development milestones. The Japanese biotech will also be eligible for royalties on future sales of any pharmaceutical product that emerges from the partnership. In return, Lilly will gain access to PRISM’s proprietary PepMetics platform, which synthesizes small molecule drug candidates that can behave like peptides, according to the biotech’s ...
Pharmaceutical Executive Editorial Staff KarXT (xanomeline-trospium) is currently in development to treat schizophrenia and psychosis related to Alzheimer disease. The FDA has accepted a New Drug Application (NDA) for Karuna Therapeutics, Inc’s KarXT (xanomeline-trospium) treatment for schizophrenia in adult patients. The novel muscarinic antipsychotic is currently in development to treat schizophrenia and psychosis related to Alzheimer disease. “There is a significant need for new treatment options for serious mental illness. If approved, KarXT could be one of the more important new product introductions in neuropsychiatry by providing a novel pharmacological approach for the treatment of schizophrenia,” said Bill Meury, Karuna Therapeutics president and chief executive officer, said in a press release.1 Schizophrenia can be a disabling condition, potentially causing a combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that has a negative impact on the ability to function in daily life. As such, patients with schizophrenia require lifelong ...
Of those who have chosen ACA Marketplace coverage so far in the 2024 Open Enrollment Period, 20% are new consumers and 80% are returning consumers, according to CMS. By MARISSA PLESCIA Nearly 4.6 million people have chosen an Affordable Care Act (ACA) Health Insurance Marketplace plan so far during the 2024 Marketplace Open Enrollment period, CMS reported last week. The Marketplace Open Enrollment Period began November 1. CMS’ report shows data through November 18 for the 32 states using HealthCare.gov and November 11 for the 17 states and the District of Columbia with State-based Marketplaces. The open enrollment period ends January 15 with HealthCare.gov, while State-based Marketplaces have different deadlines. Those who enroll by December 15 can get coverage starting January 1. CMS said that 20% of the plan selections are from people who are new to the Marketplaces, representing 920,000 people. The remaining 80%, or 3.7 million consumers, have ...
A new trial led by researchers at the University of Edinburgh has revealed that a new blood test in emergency departments can spot more patients with injuries to their heart muscle, producing lower rates of future heart attacks and deaths. Funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and published in the BMJ journal, the new blood test could improve diagnosis for one in five patients who have a heart muscle injury. In the UK, heart attacks are responsible for around 100,000 hospital admissions every year. During a heart attack or heart injury stemming from other heart conditions, a protein known as troponin is released into the blood. The new test detects very low levels of troponin more accurately than older versions of the tests, which have been used by doctors for years to help diagnose these conditions in people with chest pains and related symptoms. Researchers analysed the results of ...
Drug manufacturer Intas Pharmaceuticals is no stranger to FDA scrutiny. Now, one of its plants has been placed on an import alert after a series of interactions with the agency. After a May inspection of Intas’ plant in Gujarat, India, the FDA published a warning letter that points a finger at management and labels products made at the site “adulterated” because of the company’s manufacturing deficiencies. Before this development, the FDA earlier this year slapped the site with a Form 483 filing outlining problems at the plant. Shortly after that, the company provided a response that proved to be “inadequate,” as the FDA described it. In the warning letter, the FDA blasted Intas for an “egregious pattern” of shortfalls that shows the company’s failure to carry out “basic responsibilities.” The agency tracked multiple instances of data manipulation going back to 2021. In these cases, visual inspectors manipulated particle and other ...
By Kate Goodwin Pictured: Bristol Myers Squibb building in Munich/iStock, Tati Campelo Bristol Myers Squibb is upping the ante in its partnership with Avidity Biosciences. The San Diego-based biopharma announced Tuesday an expansion of its previous collaboration with BMS, with the latter paying $100 million upfront and adding up to five cardiovascular targets. With potential cumulative payments of up to $2.3 billion plus low double-digit royalties, the partnership could be a lucrative one for the RNA biopharma. The deal expansion sent Avidity’s suffering stock soaring around 35% in premarket trading. A welcome reprieve to the 72% tumble it took earlier this year. Avidity will get a $60 million upfront cash payment in addition to BMS scooping up $40 million of its stock to deliver new cardiovascular treatments utilizing the former’s antibody oligonucleotide conjugates (AOCs). Avidity’s AOCs combine the targeting specificity of monoclonal antibodies with the precision of oligonucleotide therapies to ...
By Tyler Patchen Pictured: Exterior of an FDA building/iStock, Grandbrothers The FDA announced Tuesday that it is investigating the “serious risk” of malignancies in patients who received treatment with BCMA- or CD19-directed autologous CAR-T cell immunotherapies. The regulator said it has determined that the risk of T-cell malignancies “is applicable to all currently approved BCMA-directed and CD19-directed genetically modified autologous CAR T cell immunotherapies” including Bristol Myers Squibb’s Abcema and Breyanzi, Johnson & Johnson’s Carvykti, Novartis’ Kymriah and Gilead’s Tecartus and Yescarta. “T-cell malignancies have occurred in patients treated with several products in the class,” according to the FDA, which said it received reports from clinical trials and postmarketing adverse event data. While the agency said that the overall benefits of these products continue to outweigh their potential risks, it “is investigating the identified risk of T cell malignancy with serious outcomes, including hospitalization and death, and is evaluating the ...
Food-as-medicine platform Season Health has closed on its strategic asset acquisition from Wellory, which offers a network of registered dietitians, the companies announced Tuesday. Austin, Texas-based Season Health offers personalized food recipes, pre-made meals, grocery support, one-on-one meetings with a dietitian and nutrition education. It serves payers and employers. New York City-based Wellory works with payers and connects patients to dietitians for one-on-one virtual nutrition sessions. This network of dietitians provides care for 25 different specialties in 15 languages across all 50 states. “Food-as-medicine, as far as I can tell, is still excitingly emerging,” said Josh Hix, CEO and co-founder of Season Health, in an interview. “There’s not yet one definition [of food-as-medicine], and in our opinion, it needs to include dietitian services. We see patients all the time where they have, for example, uncontrolled diabetes or poorly controlled diabetes. No one’s ever told this person that it’s large volumes ...
Dive Brief Medtronic said Monday it is launching a device in the U.S. designed to close the left atrial appendage (LAA) of the heart in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. The treatment is intended for patients who have atrial fibrillation (AFib), an arrhythmia that can lead to stroke. The introduction of the implantable LAA clip, called Penditure, marks Medtronic’s entry into the fast-growing market for left atrial appendage closure devices, led by Boston Scientific’s Watchman franchise. Medtronic said it acquired the LAA exclusion system in August from Miami-based medical device incubator Syntheon, in a move to expand its cardiac surgery portfolio. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Dive Insight Medtronic’s device is the newest challenger to Boston Scientific’s Watchman in a growing market that includes Abbott’s Amplatzer Amulet treatment, which gained approval from the Food and Drug Administration in 2021, and AtriCure, whose AtriClip device was the first LAA exclusion ...
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