Worldwide News

Since the turn of the century, when the term “personalised medicine” was first coined, the use of molecular diagnostic (or biomarker) testing in clinical trials has continued to grow in terms of complexity and importance. These tests have undergone a period of rapid development and growth in the last decade, with the implementation of new high complexity tests […]

New UCLA-led research in mice suggests that adding a certain type of tomato concentrate to the diet can reduce the intestinal inflammation that is associated with HIV. Left untreated, intestinal inflammation can accelerate arterial disease, which in turn can lead to heart attack and stroke. The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS Pathogens.  The […]

Results of a new study by researchers at Case Western Reserve University represent a step toward improving understanding of Crohn’s disease and the factors that cause its intestinal inflammation.  About Crohn’s disease  Crohn’s disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that can lead to chronic inflammation of the entire digestive tract. Symptoms include diarrhea, […]

Revelar Biotherapeutics and Twist Bioscience have announced that RBT-0813 binds to and neutralises the Omicron and Delta variants of SARS-CoV-2 in live virus studies.   What is RBT-0813?  RBT-0813 is a bispecific antibody discovered by Twist Biopharma and licensed to Revelar Biotherapeutics that targets epitopes on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Revelar has continued to advance preclinical development of RBT-0813 to submit an Investigational […]

PhoreMost, a UK-based biopharmaceutical company developing drugs against intractable disease targets, and Polaris Quantum Biotech (POLARISqb), a NC-based quantum computing drug design company, have collaborated to study oncology targets currently considered undruggable.   The agreement  The POLARISqb Tachyon quantum computing platform will be used to scan billions of molecules from a large chemical space, to find novel molecular […]

A study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has shown that an experimental immunotherapy can temporarily reprogramme patients’ immune cells to attack a specific target via only a single injection of mRNA, similar to the mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines.  Context  The researchers, whose work is published in Science, demonstrated the new approach with an […]

Sanofi and Exscientia have announced a research collaboration and license agreement to develop up to 15 novel small molecule candidates across oncology and immunology, leveraging Exscientia’s end-to-end AI-driven platform utilising actual patient samples.   Background  The companies have been working together since 2016 and in 2019, Sanofi in-licensed Exscientia’s novel bispecific small molecule candidate capable of targeting two distinct targets in inflammation […]

Are you interested in learning how single-cell RNA-seq can be applied to comprehensively characterise the gene therapy drug product? Or the importance of including proteogenomics in your single-cell analysis to characterise the complex tumour microenvironment?  On 3 February 2022, DDW will host a free event, supported by 10x Genomics. Reorganisation of the tumour microenvironment in response to KRASG12C […]

News round-up by DDW’s Megan Thomas for 3-7 January, 2022  With the new year comes new discoveries, results, research, data and collaboration in the drug discovery industry. This week, DDW’s Megan Thomas has selected her top five news stories which have emerged in the sector.  1. Experimental mRNA HIV vaccine is safe and shows promise […]

Pharmaceutical companies must keep improving Covid-19 treatments in line with new variants without sidelining work in other areas of health, according to new data from YouGov and Informa Pharma Intelligence, a provider for the biopharma industry.   The report  This data, included in Informa Pharma’s ‘Q4 2021 Clinical Trials and the Covid 19 Landscape’ report, is […]