A trial of a new vaccine against meningococcal disease, a cause of meningitis and blood poisoning, has found that it is safe and induces a strong immune response across five strains of meningococcal bacteria: A, C, W, Y and X. The phase 3 trial compared the immune response generated by the new pentavalent vaccine NmCV-5 against that of the licensed quadrivalent MenACWY-D vaccine in 1,800 healthy participants aged 2–29 in Mali and The Gambia. After 28 days, across all ages, the immune responses generated by a single dose of NmCV-5 were generally higher than those generated by MenACWY-D. In addition, NmCV-5 induced a strong immune response to the emerging meningococcal X strain for which there is currently no licensed vaccine. The trial found no safety concerns with NmCV-5. The study, led by a team including researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Unit, The Gambia, at the London School of ...
Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is a case where the death of an apparently healthy infant before their first birthday remains unexplained even after thorough investigation. Death generally seems to occur when infants are sleeping. While rare, it is the leading post-neonatal infant death in the United States today, occurring in 103 out of 100,000 live births a year. Despite the initial success of national public health campaigns promoting safe sleep environments and healthier sleep positions in infants in the 1990s in the United States, rates of cases have remained the same over the last three decades. Researchers here collected tissue from the San Diego Medical Examiner’s Office related to infant deaths between 2004 and 2011. They then examined the brain stems of 70 infants who died during the period and tested them for consistent abnormalities. They found that the serotonin 2A/C receptor is altered in sudden infant death cases ...
By Tyler Patchen News Reporter https://endpts.com/fda-warns-sure-biochem-over-quality-and-data-issues/ A warning letter has been given to a company that tests finished drug products over several quality issues. The FDA issued the warning letter to Sure-BioChem Laboratories, a Camden, NJ-based contract test laboratory that does microbial testing on products including finished drugs. Sure-BioChem was inspected late last year, but the regulator has advised the company that it still needs to make some corrections. The letter said that inspectors found that the company had failed to establish and follow procedures for some of its tests and it had not validated its use of “alternative microbial methods” used to test drug products to ensure that its methods were “Specifically, you failed to adequately establish that your microbiological testing methods can reliably detect objectionable microorganisms,” the letter said. Sure-BioChem’s methods also failed to detect Burkholderia cepacia complex (Bcc) bacteria and reported “not detected” to a client. The ...
Dive Brief: Growth in parts of the orthopedic market will start to normalize late this year as surgeons work though a backlog of cases that had been postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic, analysts at Needham wrote. The analysts expect hip growth to normalize late this year and the knee and spine markets to slow down by the end of 2024. In the trauma and extremities market, the analysts see potential for “above-normal growth for some time.” A slowdown in capital spending by hospitals, currency fluctuations and supply chain issues are among factors the analysts said could hurt revenue for a number of the orthopedic companies. Dive Insight: Orthopedic companies have made a fast start to 2023, with Zimmer Biomet’s CEO saying “pretty much everything went better than expected” in the first quarter and an analyst admitting to being “kind of blown away by how good the growth rates were in ...
Just two months after Emergent BioSolutions made history by winning the FDA’s blessing to sell its opioid reversal medicine over the counter, a new treatment option has arrived in Indivior’s Opvee. The nod, which covers Opvee’s use in people 12 years of age and older, marks the first approval for the medicine’s active ingredient in nasal spray form. The molecule, nalmefene hydrochloride, was first approved in the 1990s in an injectable format but was later pulled from the market in 2008. This time around, the FDA endorsed the drug based on new evidence that it can help combat rising overdose rates in the U.S. Indivior, which closed its purchase of Opiant in March and picked up the medicine in that buyout, plans to launch Opvee in the fourth quarter of 2023. The FDA’s approval comes as overdoses attributable to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl are on the rise, with more ...
Unlocking the potential of human genetics is key to many advances in the biopharma industry. From immunotherapies that treat cancer to potential cures for rare diseases to mapping the genome for incredible medical discoveries, researchers have still only scratched the surface of what is possible in gene science. Just last week, the FDA approved the first-ever gene therapy that can be applied directly to the skin to treat patients known as “butterfly children” because of how fragile their skin can be. These kinds of forward-thinking medicines have come about due to the ever more advanced understanding of how genetics cause certain conditions. And early research in the genetic space — even that which might not appear directly related to medicine — has given scientists the tools to make better treatments down the road. Some of those treatments are on their way to helping patients soon. One cell therapy in late-stage ...
After the recent high-profile loss of exclusivity for AbbVie’s megablockbuster immunology drug Humira, industry watchers’ eyes moved to Johnson & Johnson’s Stelara as one of the next major drugs expected to face biosim competition. Tuesday, the industry got more information about when exactly that biosimilar clash might occur. In J&J’s patent case over Amgen’s proposed biosimilar to J&J’s Stelara, the companies have settled, according to a Tuesday filing in Delaware federal court. An Amgen spokesperson told Reuters the deal will allow the company to launch its Stelara biosimilar “no later than January 1st, 2025.” With that, the market exclusivity clock is ticking on J&J’s biggest drug by sales. Last year, the medicine pulled down $9.72 billion across its range of indications, including plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis and Crohn’s disease. Amgen has yet to win FDA approval for its proposed biosimilar. The company filed its biosim application last November, so the ...
Dive Brief: Beta Bionics said it received 510(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for its automated insulin dosing (AID) system, teeing it up to challenge Insulet, Medtronic and Tandem Diabetes Care for the Type 1 diabetes market. The system, iLet Bionic Pancreas, features an insulin pump and dosing software that combine with the Dexcom G6 continuous glucose monitor to automate the calculation and delivery of insulin doses. Beta Bionics, which showed the AID system beat standard of care last year, has differentiated its device through simplification and automation, limiting the information users need to input and preventing them from modifying their insulin doses. Dive Insight: The launch of iLet Bionic Pancreas may serve as a test of whether people with Type 1 diabetes are willing to almost totally cede control of their insulin dosing to an algorithm. Users of existing hybrid closed-loop systems enter information such as basal ...
AbbVie and Genmab’s blood cancer therapy, Epkinly (epcoritamab-bysp), has been granted accelerated approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The authorisation specifically applies to adults with relapsed or refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who have received at least two prior lines of treatment. DLBCL is the most common type of aggressive lymphoma, with approximately 150,000 cases of the disease diagnosed globally each year. For R/R patients, several targeted therapies including T-cell mediated treatments have recently emerged, the companies said. However, single agent and ready-available or off-the-shelf treatment options are limited. Epkinly, which is being co-developed by AbbVie and Genmab as part of the companies’ oncology collaboration, is now the first and only T-cell engaging bispecific antibody for this indication. The FDA’s decision was supported by positive results from a phase 1/2 trial, in which Epkinly delivered an overall response rate of 61%, a complete response rate ...
Sepsis is a global health priority affecting 55 million patients worldwide and causing 11 million deaths annually. Treatment for sepsis may include prompt recognition, source control, antibiotics, fluids, vasopressors, and adjunctive therapies. Corticosteroids have been evaluated as adjunctive therapy for septic shock for more than 50 years. Despite this substantive body of research, uncertainty persists about the effects of corticosteroids on mortality. In a study publishing May 22, 2023 in the New England Journal of Medicine: Evidence, an international team of researchers from UC San Francisco, Raymond Poincaré AP-HP Hospital, Versailles SQY University, Paris-Saclay University and Inserm, and the George Institute for Global Health in Sydney, studied the role of hydrocortisone in the management of adult patients with septic shock. They found that while the effect of hydrocortisone was modest in terms of overall survival, it was associated with a decrease in the need for vasopressor drugs and improvement in ...
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