Takeda

The Japanese multinational pharma is pledging up to $580 million in a development and commercialization deal with AcuraStem for the latter’s PIKFYVE program for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The collaboration to to discover and develop new treatments for cardiometabolic diseases will leverage human data and artificial intelligence.

AbbVie

The company’s decision to scrap the deal comes after it pulled the plug on an early-stage study in August last year that was testing lemzoparlimab in combination with two other drugs for treating two types of blood cancers, myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myelocytic leukemia.

sunrise

September 24 is World Cancer Research Day, dedicated to supporting the research and innovations that improve outcomes for cancer patients across the globe. So far this year, the FDA has approved ten novel anticancer therapies, for breast cancer, multiple myeloma, acute myeloid leukemia and more. 

artificial intelligence

Major drugmakers are using artificial intelligence to find patients for clinical trials quickly, or to reduce the number of people needed to test medicines, both accelerating drug development and potentially saving millions of dollars.

AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca said on its experimental precision drug had slowed the progression of a common type of breast cancer in a late-stage trial, a boost for the company after its shares fell in July on results from a separate trial of the same drug for lung cancer.

path

Following a Type A meeting with the FDA, Mesoblast claims it has a better understanding of what the regulator needs in order to consider approving remestemcel-L in the treatment of pediatric and adult steroid-refractory acute graft versus host disease, the company announced Thursday.

FDA

The company has dropped its gene therapy candidate TSHA-120 for giant axonal neuropathy after the FDA reiterated the need for a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

mRNA molecule

Bringing in an additional $50 million in a Series B extension, ReCode Therapeutics’ total haul for the funding round totaled $260 million, which it will use to further its experimental mRNA therapies.

Neuralink

The study will use a robot to surgically place a brain-computer interface (BCI) implant in a region of the brain that controls the intention to move, Neuralink said, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.