News Archive

BALTIMORE, Dec. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — BioGenCell, a pioneer in personalized cell therapy solutions, is excited to announce the launch of its fifth Phase II clinical trial site in the United States at the University of Maryland. The trial is focused on significantly reducing the need for amputation in patients with Chronic Limb-Threatening Ischemia (CLTI). The University of Maryland has joined this ambitious, global, placebo-controlled trial designed to offer transformative results for patients.

The prognosis for CLI patients is currently disheartening: within a year of diagnosis, nearly 20% of patients succumb to the disease while 30% will undergo amputation. Tragically, nearly 70% of these amputees do not survive beyond five years post-amputation.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Vanda) (Nasdaq: VNDA) today announced that it has acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to PONVORY^® (ponesimod) from Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd. (Janssen), a Johnson & Johnson Company. PONVORY^® is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada to treat adults with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (RMS), to include clinically isolated syndrome, relapsing-remitting disease and active secondary progressive disease. PONVORY^® has a proven safety profile with over 10 years of data.

“The acquisition of Ponvory is a significant milestone for Vanda, as it expands our commercial portfolio and gives us access to a versatile immune response modifier that can potentially have broad application in treating a number of autoimmune-based disorders,” said Mihael H. Polymeropoulos, M.D., Vanda’s President, CEO and Chairman of the Board.

ARPA-H made its final hub location decision, selecting the historic Bowen Building in downtown Washington, D.C. as the site for its Stakeholder & Operations hub.

Why is this important? The new space will allow federal staff and contractors to work in one location, enhancing staff’s ability to manage programs and coordinate with federal partners—such as Congress, Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Administration. Since the agency was authorized in March 2022, much of ARPA-H’s D.C. staff has been working remotely or from temporary offices.

SILVER SPRING, Md. & RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–United Therapeutics (Nasdaq: UTHR), a public benefit corporation, today announced that the company has been named on Newsweek’s list of America’s Most Responsible Companies 2024. This award is presented by Newsweek and Statista Inc., the world-leading statistics portal and industry ranking provider. The list of awards was announced on December 6, 2023, is available on Newsweek’s website, and recognizes the top 600 most responsible companies in the United States, spanning 14 industries.

ROCKVILLE, M.D. and SUZHOU, China, Dec. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Innovent Biologics, Inc. (“Innovent”) (HKEX: 01801), a world-class biopharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures and commercializes high quality medicines for the treatment of oncology, metabolic, autoimmune, ophthalmology and other major diseases, today announces the licensing deal expansion with Synaffix B.V., a Lonza company (SIX:LONN) focused on commercializing its clinical-stage platform technology for the development of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) with best-in-class therapeutic index.

The expanded deal builds on a previous agreement signed in June 2021, under which Innovent is granted to deploy Synaffix’s ADC technologies on a target-specific, non-exclusive basis, including GlycoConnect®, HydraSpace® and one of its toxSYN® linker-payloads, for a therapeutic molecule (Innovent R&D code: IBI343, a CLDN18.2 ADC) which has advanced to Phase 1 clinical development.

A powerful web app to help drug designers accurately predict the pKa value of titratable residues

December 5, 2023, Baltimore, MD – ComputChem, an Early Charm company that develops computational chemistry software for drug design, has just launched its first product, iTitrate.

iTitrate is a web app that accurately predicts the pKa values of titratable residues by simulating an acid-base titration experiment. It computationally allows a protein to adjust its protonation and conformational states to solution pH. This state-of-the-art approach has been rigorously validated through references available on the ComputChem website.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) (“Danaher”) announced today it has completed its acquisition of Abcam plc (NASDAQ:ABCM) (“Abcam”).

The acquisition of Abcam for $24.00 per share in cash was implemented by way of a Court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement under the UK Companies Act 2006 (the “Scheme”) and the Scheme became effective in accordance with its terms on December 6, 2023. As a result, Abcam has become an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Danaher. Trading of Abcam ADSs on Nasdaq has been suspended.

By Pratik Jain and Khushi Mandowara – Dec 5 (Reuters) – Weight-loss drug developer Altimmune (ALT.O) is open to deals and collaborations with large drugmakers as it actively looks for partners to launch and develop its experimental obesity drug, CEO Vipin Garg told Reuters on Tuesday.

Upbeat mid-stage trial data for its obesity drug and recent multi-billion dollar deals by companies such as Roche (ROG.S) and AstraZeneca (AZN.L) to grab a slice of the fast-growing market have fueled hopes of Big Pharma scooping up the company.

Gaithersburg, Maryland-based Altimmune last week reported mid-stage trial data for pemvidutide that showed the drug helped reduce weight by 15.6% on average and continued weight loss at the end of treatment.