Pharma News

Research over the last 20 years has shown that atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory condition of the arterial blood vessel wall. Soluble mediators such as cytokines and chemokines are pivotal players in this disease, promoting vascular inflammation. However, the development of anti-inflammatory therapeutics directed against such mediators that could prevent atherosclerosis has proven difficult, despite promising clinical studies in the recent past.

Inhibiting a key enzyme that controls a large network of proteins important in cell division and growth paves the way for a new class of drugs that could stop glioblastoma, a deadly brain cancer, from growing.

Researchers at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and University of Toronto, showed that chemically inhibiting the enzyme PRMT5 can suppress the growth of glioblastoma cells.

Amid premature and incomplete reports from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) investigative team which has just concluded its work in China to discover the origins of SARS-CoV-2, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) calls for the investigation to continue and for the team to release a detailed report and hold a legitimate press conference after leaving China.

Individual choices in medicine carry a certain amount of uncertainty. An innovative partnership at The University of Texas at Austin takes aim at medicine down to the individual level by applying state-of-the-art computation to medical care.

"Medicine in its essence is decision-making under uncertainty, decisions about tests and treatments," said Radek Bukowski, MD, PhD, professor and associate chair of Investigation and Discovery in the Department of Women's Health at Dell Medical School at UT Austin.

Humans possess a formidable multi-layered defense system that protects us against viral infections. Better understanding of these defenses and the tricks that viruses use to evade them could open novel avenues for treating viral infections and possibly other diseases.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the PD-1 inhibitor Libtayo® (cemiplimab-rwlc) as the first immunotherapy indicated for patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma (BCC) previously treated with a hedgehog pathway inhibitor (HHI) or for whom an HHI is not appropriate. Full approval was granted for patients with locally advanced BCC and accelerated approval was granted for patients with metastatic BCC.

ViiV Healthcare, the global specialist HIV company majority owned by GlaxoSmithKline plc with Pfizer Inc.

Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc and GW Pharmaceuticals plc announced the companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Jazz to acquire GW for USD 220.00 per American Depositary Share (ADS), in the form of USD 200.00 in cash and USD 20.00 in Jazz ordinary shares, for a total consideration of USD 7.2 billion, or USD 6.7 billion net of GW cash. The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021.

The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson announced that the European Commission (EC) has authorised the expanded use of SPRAVATO® (esketamine nasal spray), co-administered with oral antidepressant therapy in adults with a moderate to severe episode of MDD, as acute short term treatment, for the rapid reduction of depressive symptoms, which according to clinical judgement constitute a psychiatric emergency.

The University of Kentucky has been selected as a testing site for the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson’s Phase 3 clinical research study ENSEMBLE 2, which is evaluating the safety and efficacy of a two-dose regimen of Janssen’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate.