Biotech News

A large safety study found that patients given Pfizer's Xeljanz had health issues like major heart complications and cancer at a higher rate than those who got a different kind of anti-inflammation drug.

The emergence of new variants has made antibody drug combinations, which are harder for the virus to evade, more important and led to a unique partnership between a trio of drugmakers.

As coronavirus variants spread, the White House aims to up U.S. vaccine supply by exercising purchase options in contracts with Pfizer and Moderna.

Eli Lilly teams up with pharma rival GSK and partner Vir for COVID-19 antibody cocktail test badams Wed, 01/27/2021 - 08:48

Vir stock soars on blinded, 8-subject hepatitis B analysis ntaylor Wed, 01/27/2021 - 08:13

Cancer drug derived from sea squirts outperforms remdesivir in COVID-19 preclinical models aliu Wed, 01/27/2021 - 07:53

Agios readies FDA filing as anemia drug clears another phase 3 ntaylor Wed, 01/27/2021 - 06:55

Next-generation sequencing techniques to determine an individual’s unique genetic code gave rise to personalized treatments. Single-cell sequencing is the next step towards making precision medicine more accurate.  Each cell in our body is unique. Even genetically identical cells can behave differently in response to a certain treatment. With next-generation sequencing, scientists can study how the average cell within a group behaves. However, this can lead to erroneous conclusions.  “It is like population surveys, which tell us the average American family has 1.2 children. That’s useless. That’s not helpful. Not a single family has 1.2 children,” stated Christoph Lengauer, CEO of Celsius Therapeutics, a company that develops precision therapies using machine learning.  “Single-cell sequencing, by contrast, can indicate which family has six children, and which has just one and a dog,” Lengauer said. “It’s orders of magnitude more granular.”  In recent years, there has been a shift in the technology available to perform single-cell sequencing. The global company Fluidigm used to hold the bulk of the market, The post Single-Cell Sequencing: Paving the Way for Precision Medicine appeared first on Labiotech.eu.

Care Access Research teams up with AstraZeneca for COVID-19 antibody virtual trial work badams Wed, 01/27/2021 - 04:16

See the companies featured in our 2021 maps, explore the territories that are thriving in the life sciences industry, research leading employers and search for relevant jobs on BioSpace.

At the annual J.P. Morgan conference, the biotech industry launched its encore to a wildly successful 2020 – virtually. And, as is becoming the common scenario, attendees found both pros and cons to our new (temporary?) reality.

Use these ways to immediately make the a new co-worker feel at ease.

On Tuesday, the U.K. offered its genomics expertise to identify emerging variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to countries that lack the resources to make such identifications.

Police have sealed off the area, according to the report. Few details were available, but eye witnesses said a robot was investigating a suspicious package found at the plant.

A brief rundown of who’s raking in cash in the biopharma world.

Vir Biotechnology, Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline struck a three-way collaborative deal to evaluate its investigational monoclonal antibody, VIR-7831, in combination with Lilly’s bamlanivimab in low-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.

Agios reported its second positive Phase III readout for small molecule mitapivat to treat pyruvate kinase deficiency, this time meeting its primary endpoint of reduced blood transmission burden.

The Series A financing will help fuel Nuvalent’s research and development efforts for a portfolio of innovative small molecule kinase inhibitors for programs in non-small cell lung cancer.

Much of the attention on Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca for the last few months has been on their COVID-19 vaccine efforts.

Pfizer announced in a statement on Wednesday that the prespecified non-inferiority criteria for a post-marketing safety study of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) drug XELJANZ® (tofacitinib) were not met.

J&J indicated it will soon release Phase III data and could file for Emergency Use Authorization with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the end of the month.

The French drugmaker, having hit delays with its own coronavirus shot, agreed to manufacture over 125 million doses of Pfizer and BioNTech's vaccine for supply in Europe.

The results show that drugs from both companies can help prevent or treat COVID-19 when given at the right time. But that won't mean much if barriers to use remain high.

Results from the large Phase 3 trial are highly anticipated. If proven effective, J&J's shot could provide much-needed reinforcements to a constrained immunization effort.

Johnson & Johnson's closely watched single-shot COVID-19 vaccine readout 'next week' as CFO sees 'robust data' badams Tue, 01/26/2021 - 08:26