Surface Oncology agreed to grant exclusive worldwide licensing rights to GlaxoSmithKline for the development and commercialization of the Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech company’s SRF813, a fully human IgG1 antibody and immunotherapy designed to treat cancer.

Pascal Soriot

AstraZeneca is acquiring Alexion Pharmaceuticals for $39 billion, with the deal expected to close in the third quarter of 2021.

Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline said clinical trials of their Covid-19 vaccine showed an insufficient immune response in older people, delaying its launch to late 2021 and marking a setback in the global fight against the pandemic.

Janssen

The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson has a presence in more than 80 of the hematology studies presented at the 62nd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition in December.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to a Covid-19 test developed by Roche that measures antibodies within the blood.

Eli Lilly

Biomarkers will be critical to developing precision medicine for Alzheimer’s disease, and phosphorylated tau (P-tau) may enable earlier and more accurate detection, according to Eli Lilly-associated researchers.

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model able to detect asymptomatic Covid-19 cases by identifying differences in the sounds of coughs between healthy and infected people.

Caris Life Sciences secured $310 million in growth capital that will be used to expand the molecular science company’s presence in precision medicine in oncology.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine identified a protein – known as factor D – that appears essential to the inflammatory process of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Roche’s Venclexta (venetoclax) full approval in combination with azacytidine, or decitabine, or low-dose cytarabine for newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia in adults 75 years or older.