News

NHS England has published interim guidance allowing the use of adalimumab (AbbVie’s Humira) to treat children with severe refractory uveitis, an inflammation of the middle layer of the eye.

Pharmaceutical companies are finding it difficult to recruit for high skilled roles in the UK because of a shallow pool of good quality candidates, raising concerns that the country’s standing in global research and development is in danger of being weakened.

AstraZeneca’s lupus drug anifrolumab has achieved its primary and secondary endpoints in Phase II trial, significantly reducing disease activity versus placebo across multiple endpoints.

The US Food and Drug Administration has assigned Teva’s SD-809 Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the treatment of patients with moderate-to-severe tardive dyskinesia, a hyperkinetic movement disorder affecting about 500,000 people in the US.

Scottish cost regulators have approved four new therapies for use on the National Health Service in Scotland, offering patients access to new treatments for skin cancer, ovarian cancer and deep vein thrombosis.

Johnson & Johnson group Janssen has picked up worldwide rights, excluding China and Korea, to develop and commercialise oxyntomodulin-based therapies from Hanmi Pharmaceutical, beefing up its metabolism portfolio.

Oral cancer in now the 10th most common cancer in men as overall the incidence of the disease has risen by a third in the last decade, show new figures from Cancer Research UK.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Gilead’s Genvoya – which combines four medicines in a single pill – giving certain patients with HIV a new treatment option.

A bill under which the government would have gained responsibility for repurposing off-patent medicines showing promise in unlicensed indications has failed to make it past its second reading in parliament. 

A subcutaneous formulation of GlaxoSmithKline’s Benlysta has hit targets in a Phase III trial involving patients with active, autoantibody-positive systemic lupus erythematosus.

London, UK-based PepTCell (trading as SEEK) is linking with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), to jointly lead a human challenge study of its universal flu candidate, FLU-v.

Merck & Co’s neuromuscular blockade antidote sugammadex has cleared a significant hurdle to market after winning backing from a panel of US regulatory advisors for the reversal for general anaesthesia.

Sanofi has inked a licensing deal with South Korea’s Hanmi to beef up its research pipeline with a trio of investigational diabetes therapies.

AstraZeneca has unveiled plans to buy California-based ZS Pharma for $2.7 billion in a move that adds ballast to its cardiovascular and metabolic disease offering.

Entries from all over the world have been flowing in, testament to the commitment of clinical researchers to their continued professional development.