Worldwide News

A round-up of the latest senior appointments in the drug discovery sector over the last month. Julian Collins, Jana Windt and Michiel Stork, ProBioGen Julian Collins has been appointed as Senior Vice President, Head of People & Organizational Development (P&OD) and a member of the Executive Team. Michiel Stork has taken on a role of Vice […]

A Phase I clinical trial has begun evaluating Direct Biologics’ ExoFlo for the treatment of patients with medically refractory ulcerative colitis (UC). Direct Biologics uses extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to address multiple disease indications. The trial is expected to enrol 10 patients, aged 18-75 years, who have had […]

Sonoma Biotherapeutics and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals have announced plans to collaborate on the discovery, development and commercialisation of novel regulatory T cell (Treg) therapies for autoimmune diseases. The collaboration will bring together Regeneron’s VelociSuite technologies for the discovery and characterisation of fully human antibodies and T cell receptors (TCRs) with Sonoma Biotherapeutics’ approach to developing and […]

Destiny Pharma, a UK-based clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the development of novel medicines to prevent life threatening infections, has published landmark XF-73 clinical data in the US peer reviewed journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.    The paper was published by Dr. Julie Mangino (Professor Emeritus, Division of Infectious Diseases, at The Ohio State […]

iOnctura, a clinical stage biotechnology company developing breakthrough therapies for patients suffering with cancer, has been awarded the innovative medicine designation, the Innovation Passport, for roginolisib, for the treatment of metastatic uveal melanoma by the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).  Roginolisib is a first-in-class, non-ATP-competitive, allosteric modulator of PI3Kd which prevents tumour proliferation […]

Biotechnology company SolasCure has completed its £10.9m ($13.3m) Series B investment round. The funding round was led by Seneca Partners and also included BRAIN Biotech, EVA Pharma, Jonathan Milner, and Wealth Club. SolasCure’s first investigational product, Aurase Wound Gel, a hydrogel containing an enzyme cloned from medical maggots which aims to accelerate wound debridement, is […]

Patients with ‘blinding’ headaches known as idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) could be treated with an injectable peptide used for type 2 diabetes, a new trial has found. The study was led by a team of neurologists from the University of Birmingham and University Hospitals Birmingham, and published in the journal Brain. It reports on a […]

Merck has bought the exclusive worldwide rights to develop, manufacture and commercialise anti PD-L1 antibody Bavencio (avelumab) from Pfizer. Merck will take full control of the global commercialisation of Bavencio through its affiliate Ares Trading. The transaction has also ended a long-term collaboration between Merck and Pfizer. The current profit share will be replaced by […]

The latest episode of the DDW Highlights podcast is now available to listen to below. DDW’s Megan Thomas narrates five key stories of the week to keep DDW subscribers up-to-date on the latest industry updates.  This week we have seen a number of developments in the treatment of solid tumours hitting the headlines. Pennsylvania researchers may have found […]

Macomics and Ono Pharmaceutical have entered a worldwide drug discovery collaboration agreement to develop new immuno-oncology antibody drugs against a novel macrophage target of interest in cancer. Under the terms of the agreement, Macomics will identify and characterise antibody candidates against the novel target of interest using its ENIGMACTM macrophage drug discovery platform. Ono will […]