News

The government has tasked the University of Leeds and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust with running a new co-ordinating centre to manage the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)’s 15 local clinical research networks across the country, completing a major restructure of the system that should ultimately help get more patients participating in trials.

Save the Children says no stone will be left unturned in its probe as to how a Scottish nurse who volunteered at the charity’s Ebola treatment centre in Kerry Town, Sierra Leone contracted the virus.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has announced new measures to tackle sepsis which each year claims around 31,000 lives and costs the NHS in England about £2 billion.

Shares in Isis Pharma have climbed on news of a research/license deal worth up to $835-million with Johnson & Johnson group Janssen Biotech, focusing on RNA-targeted drugs for autoimmune disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. 

Johnson & Johnson group Janssen has expanded an existing deal with Gilead to develop a once daily, darunavir-based, single-tablet regimen for the treatment of people living with HIV.  

Long cited as a takeover target, rare disease specialist NPS Pharmaceuticals is seeking a buyer, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Pfizer has acquired a controlling interest in Redvax, a spin-off from Switzerland’s Redbiotec, giving it access to a preclinical human cytomegalovirus vaccine candidate.

Amgen is sinking $60 million upfront into a research and licensing deal to develop new immunotherapies for cancer.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has linked up with the California Institute for Biomedical Research to develop anti-fibrotic therapies.

All newborn babies in England will be offered screening for four additional rare genetic disorders.

US clinical-stage pharma Cempra will be celebrating news that its antibiotic Solitaire-Oral (solithromycin) achieved efficacy targets in a Phase III trial involving patients with difficult-to-treat community-acquired bacterial pneumonia.

The US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have both reported high levels of new drug approvals in 2014.

The US government has handed out contracts worth more than $40 million to NewLink Genetics and GlaxoSmithKline to help accelerate the development and manufacture of their experimental Ebola vaccines.

It is looking unlikely that patients with Crohn’s disease will get National Health Service access to Takeda’s biologic Entyvio (vedolizumab) anytime soon after an early rejection by cost regulators.

The European Commission has allowed the expanded use of Novartis eye unit Alcon’s Travatan (travoprost) in paediatric patients with glaucoma.