Dr Mark Bunnage, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Research at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, talks to Pharmafocus about scientific innovation to help create transformative medicines for people living with serious diseases
15 November 2024
How can the combined power of multidisciplinary teams and precision medicine be harnessed for people living with bladder cancer?
5 September 2024
Alex Fong and Olivia Houselander from Owen Mumford Pharmaceutical Services consider the action needed to make drug discovery processes more sustainable
17 July 2024
Konrad Werhahn from UCB discusses how disease-modifying solutions may introduce a new era in treatment for epilepsies
17 July 2024
Rajul Jain from ProPharma considers how AI can be used in patient support, especially considering how it can be used to streamline operations and supplement human expertise
17 July 2024
Betsy Goodfellow from Pharmafocus considers Pride month and the state of LGBTQ+ healthcare in the UK
4 June 2024Alex Fong and Olivia Houselander from Owen Mumford Pharmaceutical Services consider the action needed to make drug discovery processes more sustainable
17 July 2024Konrad Werhahn from UCB discusses how disease-modifying solutions may introduce a new era in treatment for epilepsies
17 July 2024Rajul Jain from ProPharma considers how AI can be used in patient support, especially considering how it can be used to streamline operations and supplement human expertise
17 July 2024
Henar Hevia at Johnson & Johnson considers the progress that has been made in lung cancer treatment since the discovery of EGFR, including the evolving treatment paradigm, the role of precision medicine in treatment decision-making and quality of life for patients receiving targeted treatments
4 June 2024
Alan Baldridge and Heather Peterson from ICON consider the prevalence of paediatric obesity and assess clinical trials of its treatments
4 June 2024
Rafal Kaminski from Angelini Pharma tells Pharmafocus about the global challenge of epilepsy as well as how his company is striving to bridge the gaps in epilepsy treatment
28 April 2024
Risk-based quality management (RBQM) and data quality oversight software company Cluepoints launches its latest application, the medical & safety review (MSR), to simplify and streamline the medical analysis of study data through user-friendly dashboards, data manipulation and cleaning, query management and full transparency over the data history.
Liquid biopsy company ANGLE plc has announced a partnership with NuProbe, a genomics and molecular diagnostics company, to utilise the latter’s pan-cancer next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel.
Earlier this September, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval for PureTech Health’s Karxt for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults, triggering royalty payments of $29m to PureTech. It will be the first approved mechanism by the FDAfor schizophrenia in over 50 years.
Owlstone Medical has entered into a research collaboration with the US Food and Drug administration’s (FDA) centre for devices and radiological health to develop methods for the confident identification of individual chemicals in the composure of breath.
Ars pharmaceuticals has been granted approval by the us food and drug administration (fda) for their epinephrine nasal spray, neffy, to be used as treatment of type 1 allergic reactions including anaphylaxis.
Leading life science investor novo holdings has announced a £50m investment in oxford nanopore technologies. Oxford nanopore technologies is a leading uk-listed company currently specialising in a new generation of molecular sensing technology based on nanopores.
Drug discovery company Cresset has announced the extension of its global collaboration with chemical and biological contract research organisation (cro) Enamine.
Accord healthcare have recently announced that NICE have recommended the first oral androgen deprivation therapy (adt) treatment for hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men across the uk.
This month, Verisense have announced that their digital biobank, with data from over one million people, is open for business.
Biotechnology company Levicept has announced positive results from its phase 2 trial into levi-04 for the treatment of osteoarthritis.
Calliditas therapeutics ab has recently announced that the phase 2b transform trial met its primary endpoint. The trial showed statistically significant improvement in alkaline phosphatase (alp) for both doses tested versus placebo. the trial evaluated setanaxib, a nox enzyme inhibitor, in patients with primary biliary cholangitis (pbc) and elevated liver stiffness.
Merck (known as MSDoutside of the US and Canada) has announced that its anti-pd-1 therapy, in combination with padcev (enfortuman vedotin-ejfv), has received a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency (EMA)
Researchers at the UCLA Health jonsson comprehensive cancer center have announced that they are launching a first-of-its-kind clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a cancer vaccine. The vaccine targets h3 g34-mutant diffuse hemispheric glioma, an aggressive brain tumour typically found in adolescents and young people.
The National Institute for Health and Care excellence (NICE) have recommended adult patients in England or Wales with moderately or severely active ulcerative colitis (uc) who have not responded well to or cannot tolerate conventional or biological therapy including a tumour necrosis factor (tnf) alpha inhibitor the option of skyrizi (risankizumab).
This month, Janssen-Cilag international, part of johnson & johnson (j&j) has announced that the European Commission (EC) has approved a combined treatment of rybrevant (amivantamab) and chemotherapy (carboplatin and pemerexed) for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (nsclc) with an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).
Eisai and Econavista have announced that they have entered into a business alliance agreement, initiating their collaboration intended to build an ecosystem in the field of dementia.
BALVERSA (erdafitinib) has been granted marketing approval by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for the treatment of the most common type of bladder cancer, metastatic or unresectable urothelial carcinoma.
Theramex, a dedicated women’s health company, has announced that the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has recommended YSELTY (linzagolix) for the treatment of moderate or severe symptoms of uterine fibroids (UFs) in adult women of reproductive age.
Approval of an updated version of the Nuvaxovid COVID-19 vaccine, developed by Novavax, has been granted by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), to target the omicron JN.1 COVID-19 subvariant.
Earlier in November, Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine have applied to the US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the approval of a new indication for DARZALEX FASPRO (daratumumab and hyluronidase-fihj).
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has given a positive recommendation for Santen’s Roclanda (netarsudil 0.02% and latanoprost 0.005%) as an option for patients suffering from primary open-angle glaucoma (poag) or ocular hypertension.
Last month, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), which is part of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced that it has adopted a positive opinion for Novartis’ Kisquali (ribociclib) as an adjuvant in the treatment of adults with hormone receptor-positive/human epidermal growth factor 2negative (hr+/her2-) early breast cancer (ebc).
Wainzua (Eplotersen), produced by AstraZeneca and Ionis, has been recommended for approval in the EU by the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA’s) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP). The drug will be used as a treatment for hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis in adult patients who have stage 1 or 2 polyneuropathy (commonly referred to as hattr-pn or attrv-pn).
Clinical stage medical device company CytexOrtho has announced approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its planned phase 1 clinical trial into orthopaedic joint preservation and repair.
Questioning almost 9,000 participants across 12 countries in Latin America and Europe, the research revealed significant knowledge gaps surrounding human papillomavirus (HPV) and highlighted several significant barriers preventing women from screening for it.
French start-up Bioptimus has announced that its H-optimus-o biology reference artificial intelligence (AI) foundation model has been wholly integrated into Proscia’s Concentriq Embeddings software platform, with the aim of enabling quicker and more efficient breakthroughs in AI development for therapeutic research.
Sumagen Canada Inc, a biotech company based in both South Korea and Canada has partnered with CDMO Naobios to industrialise Sumagen’s human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 vaccine candidate (SAV0001) at bench scale.
Clinical-stage biotech company Aravax has announced that it has completed phase 2 recruitment for its precision therapy (pvx108) study, which investigates treatment of peanut allergies.
Headlands Research, a multinational network of clinical research sites, has launched a new clinical trials site in El Paso, Texas, US.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Sanofi’s Dupixent as an add-on maintenance treatment for adults with inadequately controlled chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and an eosinophilic phenotype.
Tiziana Life Sciences, a biotechnology company developing immunomodulation therapies, announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH),'s National Institute on Aging has awarded a $4m grant to Dr Howard Weiner as principal investigator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital to be the key research site to study nasal anti-cd3 for the treatment of alzheimer’s disease (ad).
The European Commission (EC) has approved Astellas Pharma’s vyloy (zolbetuximab) in combination with fluoropyrimidine and platinum-containing chemotherapy as a treatment for adult patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)negative gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma whose tumours are claudin (CLDN) 18.2 positive.
SolasCure, a biotechnology company that is dedicated to working towards filling the current market gap in debridement – the removal of necrotic tissue to encourage healing – and healing solutions for chronic wounds has announced a partnership with the US Army’s Institute of Surgical Research (USAISR).
The HFX iq, a personalised spinal cord stimulation (SCS) system developed by Nevro that leverages artificial intelligence technology to manage chronic pain, has received CE mark certification in Europe.
Earlier in November, the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden published the results of a study demonstrating that resistant bacteria, when paired with material equipped with antibacterial peptides, can regain susceptibility to antibiotics.
Biotech company Cytomos has announced this month that it has raised £5m to scale up the production of its unique cell analysis technology.
Advance Tests, committed to enhancing diagnostic accessibility and advancing early disease detection, announced the exclusive UK launch of LucentAD complete.
Questioning almost 9,000 participants across 12 countries in Latin America and Europe, the research revealed significant knowledge gaps surrounding human papillomavirus (HPV) and highlighted several significant barriers preventing women from screening for it.
French start-up Bioptimus has announced that its H-optimus-o biology reference artificial intelligence (AI) foundation model has been wholly integrated into Proscia’s Concentriq embeddings software platform, with the aim of enabling quicker and more efficient breakthroughs in ai development for therapeutic research.
Hosted again in Barcelona, Spain, the Immunoskin conference ran from 26-27 October and brought together leading experts in dermatological conditions and treatments.
Liveo Research, a leading primary packaging manufacturer, has had the EcoVadis rating of its Singapore site increased from gold to platinum. This means that the pharma packaging site is now rated in the top 1% of the 100,000 companies evaluated by ecovadis in its annual global surveys.
In late October, HUTCHMED’s partner Takeda will pay a milestone payment of $20m as the result of over $200m worth of sales for Fruzaqla (fruquintinib), which treats metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC).
Running from 26-28 November 2024, the largest pharma event in India is expected to have a record attendance of delegates from more than 150 countries, with over 2,000 exhibitors also expected.
Announced by PacBio, known for developing sequencing solutions, SPRQ has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of sequencing genomes.
Sumagen Canada Inc, a biotech company based in both South Korea and Canada, has partnered with CDMO Naobios to industrialise Sumagen’s human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 vaccine candidate (sav0001) at bench scale.
The partnership between the two companies has resulted in the launching of a first-of-its-kind blister packaging, utilising polyethylene terephthalate (PET) instead of the more traditional poly vinyl chloride (PVC).
NRG Therapeutics has announced that its NRG5051 inhibitor has secured a $5m grant from the Michael J. Fox foundation for Parkinson’s research (MJFF).
Announced by PacBio, known for developing sequencing solutions, SPRQ has the potential to significantly reduce the cost of sequencing genomes.
The 2025 media pack for Pharmafocus
Welcome to the final edition of 2024: Pharmafocus December.
Welcome to Pharmafocus November 2024!
Welcome to the October 2024 edition of Pharmafocus!
Welcome to the September 2024 issue of Pharmafocus! This issue covers the latest news including new FDA approval for primary biliary cholangitis, NICE recommendations for skyrizi (risankizumab), CHMP opinion on Merck’s KEYTRUDA, as well as articles on precision medicine and oral peptides PLUS what to look out for at this year's CPHI in Milan!
Welcome to the July/August 2024 issue of Pharmafocus!
Welcome to the June 2024 issue of Pharmafocus!
Welcome to the May 2024 issue of Pharmafocus!
Welcome to the April 2024 issue of Pharmafocus!
Welcome to the March 2024 issue of Pharmafocus!
Welcome to the first Pharmafocus of 2024!
Exevir Bio, a biotech company focused on developing heavy chain-only antibodies to target highly conserved epitopes for broad-spectrum protection against infectious diseases, has announced the appointment of Michael Garrett as its new CEO.
Biosynth – known for supplying the life sciences industry with critical raw materials and services – has announced that Matt Gunnison has been appointed as its new CEO and Kieran Murphy has been appointed as chairman.
Following the stepping down of the previous chair, Gerd Zettlmeissl, MinervaX has appointed Veronica Gambillara Fonck to lead the board of directors.
Pharma Tech Industries, a pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging solutions contractor for wellness products and medical devices, has announced the appointment of its new chief executive officer, Darrin T Schellin.
Cluepoints, a data quality oversight and and risk-based quality management software provider, has announced the appointment of Richard Young as its chief strategy officer.
Dr Souad Kechairi has been appointed chief medical officer at PLL Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company specialising in polypeptides.
Pacira biosciences, specialist in non-opioid pain therapies, has appointed Shawn Cross as its chief financial officer. In this role, Mr Cross will take over all responsibility for the company’s financial operations.
Dr Souad Kechairi has been appointed chief medical officer at PLL Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company specialising in polypeptides.
Prilenia, a clinical stage biotech focusing on neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders, has announced the appointment of two new senior staff members ‒ Rob Lauzen as chief financial officer (CFO) and Jason Marks as chief legal officer (CLO).
Aseptic packaging company Steriline’s founder Gerardo Fumagalli has ‘passed the torch’ to his children Illaria Fumagalli and Federico Fumagalli, who have been appointed to chief executive officer and chief sales officer, respectively. Gerardo will continue on as chairman of the board of directors.
Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has announced the appointment of two senior positions in its public affairs and communications team.
SFA Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, has announced that it has appointed Dr Anada Gubbi as director of biostatistics. Dr Gubbi will be responsible for assisting SFA Therapeutics in effectively developing drug candidates for the treatment of inflammatory diseases.
With his 20 years of expertise and proven track record in biotech and pharmaceutical industries, Curve Therapeutics appoints Simon Jones as chief financial officer and chief operating officer.
Vectory Therapeutics has announced the appointment of Adam Rosenberg as chair of the board, replacin Dr Carlo Incerti.
Mogrify has announced the appointment of Dr Jonathan Appleby as chief scientific officer.
Professor Yih-Shing Duh appointed as chief scientific advisor by H.E.L. Group
Pharmaceutical Industry news, analysis and insights