May 29, 2020 - BioPharma Dive
In Alzheimer's disease research, the lion's share of time and resources has gone toward a protein called amyloid, which many have believed to be the root cause of patients' declining brain function. But there's another protein, tau, that has drawn interest as well. Investigating tau-targeting drugs may soon be easier too, as the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved an imaging agent that shows how much tau is in a patient's brain.
While amyloid imaging drugs are already on the market, Thursday's approval was the first one for tau. The FDA cleared Tauvid, developed by Eli Lilly-owned Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, as a way to estimate the size and spread of tau protein clusters, sometimes referred to as tau tangles. The agency specified that Tauvid is to be used in positron emission tomography brain imaging for patients being evaluated for Alzheimer's, and not other conditions such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
May 28, 2020 - Fierce Pharma
GlaxoSmithKline has penned deals offering its pandemic vaccine adjuvant to several developers of COVID-19 shots. And it needs to amp up supply for those companies to make enough doses of their final products.
Now, the British pharma said it will
make 1 billion doses
of the adjuvant, dubbed AS03, in 2021 for use in multiple COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
Theoretically, the adjuvant can increase the body’s immune response to the vaccine component it’s paired with, reducing the amount of vaccine needed for each shot and allowing manufacturers to make more doses.
May 28, 2020 - BioPharma Dive
Maryland-based Novavax has bought Praha Vaccines for $167 million, an acquisition that gives the company a biologics manufacturing facility in the Czech Republic.
The move is meant to help Novavax keep pace with larger coronavirus vaccine developers, which are scaling up their manufacturing capabilities as human tests begin. According to the company, Praha’s plant in Bohumil should be able to produce 1 billion yearly doses of antigen for Novavax's experimental vaccine, known as NVX-CoV2373.
The Novavax COVID-19 vaccine is one of at least 10 currently in clinical trials. An Australian study evaluating the safety and immune responses generated by two versions of the vaccine in about 130 healthy people began enrolling patients this week and should yield results in July. Participants will get two injections, 21 days apart.
May 26, 2020 - Fierce Pharma
Sanofi and Regeneron unveiled plans last year to restructure their longstanding partnership, and now there are bigger changes afoot, for Sanofi at least: The French drugmaker aims to sell most of its massive stake in its biotech partner.
Sanofi
detailed plans
to unload about 22.8 million Regeneron shares, a stake worth some $13 billion. The sale would put a big chunk of cash into Sanofi's coffers—and at CEO Paul Hudson's disposal for potential dealmaking.
