Pharma News

Abbott announced that it has acquired Walk Vascular, LLC, a commercial-stage medical device company with a minimally invasive mechanical aspiration thrombectomy system designed to remove peripheral blood clots. Walk Vascular's peripheral thrombectomy systems will be incorporated into Abbott's existing endovascular product portfolio. Financial terms were not disclosed.

In a study published in Molecular Psychiatry, the team show that changes in the extracellular matrix of the brain –  scaffolding around nerve cells – lead to loss of memory with ageing, but that it is possible to reverse these using genetic treatments.

Cutting 20% of sugar from packaged foods and 40% from beverages could prevent 2.48 million cardiovascular disease events (such as strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrests), 490,000 cardiovascular deaths, and 750,000 diabetes cases in the U.S. over the lifetime of the adult population, reports a study published in Circulation.

Organ transplantation involves the transplantation of organs from donors as a means to treat disease or injury, but there is a shortage of organs available for donation compared to the demand for organ transplantation. Research involving the transplantation of animal organs (xenotransplantation) is ongoing, considering its potential to overcome these challenges.

The largest analysis aimed at more accurately predicting the risk of sudden cardiac death after myocardial infarction is presented in late breaking results from the PROFID consortium at ESC Congress 2021.

Novartis today announced an update on the Phase III BELINDA study investigating Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) in aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) after relapse or lack of response to first-line treatment. The BELINDA study did not meet its primary endpoint of event-free survival compared to treatment with the standard-of-care (SOC). SOC was salvage chemotherapy followed in responding patients by high-dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplant. The safety profile was consistent with the established safety profile of Kymriah.

Cara Therapeutics and Vifor Pharma announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved KORSUVA (difelikefalin) for injection for the treatment of moderate-to-severe pruritus associated with chronic kidney disease in adults undergoing hemodialysis . KORSUVA injection is a first-in-class kappa opioid receptor (KOR) agonist that targets the body’s peripheral nervous system.

Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India in collaboration with BRICS countries is implementing SARS-CoV-2 NGS-BRICS consortium and multi centric programme to study the impact of severe COVID-19 conditions on TB patients.

DELFI blood test identifies lung cancer using artificial intelligence to detect unique patterns in the fragmentation of DNA shed from cancer cells compared to normal profiles. Credit: Carolyn Hruban

A novel artificial intelligence blood testing technology developed by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center was found to detect over 90% of lung cancers in samples from nearly 800 individuals with and without cancer.