Belgium-based UCB hit the mark in the company’s Phase III clinical trial assessing zilucoplan as a potential treatment for adults with generalized myasthenia gravis, a rare autoimmune disease. Vanda Pharmaceuticals’ late-stage study of tradipitant as a treatment for the symptoms of gastroparesis, a digestive disorder, failed to meet the trial’s primary endpoint.
South San Francisco-based Cortexyme Inc. received a letter from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on January 25 placing a full clinical hold on the Investigational New Drug application for the company’s lead clinical asset atuzaginstat, which is in development for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Shares in PharmaMar jumped almost 20 percent on January 11 after the Spanish drugmaker said lab trials suggested the company’s Plitidepsin drug was effective against the main COVID-19 variants, including the highly contagious Omicron.
For the past 20 years, Novartis has held a 33 percent stake in Roche, the company’s Basel, Switzerland neighbor. Now, Novartis has divested the Swiss drugmaker’s one-third stake to Roche for $20.7 billion.
Johnson & Johnson on Oct. 19 reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue after sales of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine missed Wall Street estimates following a string of production setbacks.
Merck & Co. is buying Acceleron Pharma Inc. for about $11.5 billion, broadening the company’s portfolio beyond the aging cancer drug Keytruda with potential treatments that could bring in fresh revenue.
A U.S. appeals court on Aug. 26 threw out a $1.2 billion ruling against Gilead Sciences Inc., finding a patent on a cancer therapy the company was accused of infringing was invalid, in a blow to rival Bristol Myers Squibb Co.
Pfizer is buying Toronto and Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Trillium Therapeutics in a deal worth $2.26 billion. Trillium focuses on developing a new set of checkpoint inhibitors to treat cancer.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is charging Matthew Panuwat – a former business development executive at Medivation – with insider trading, according to a complaint filed in court stemming from Pfizer’s acquisition of Medivation in 2016.
Shares of bluebird bio were down more than 24 percent after the company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration placed a clinical hold on studies of the gene therapy elivaldogene autotemcel (eli-cel) for cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (CALD).
