Roche
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There’s been another milestone in the history of biotech: The world’s first RNAi gene-silencing drug, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals’ Onpattro, got approved on August 10. That makes 2018 a landmark year. But another year—2014—may prove just as influential for the field and how it develops.
As Brexit creeps closer and closer, the British government, as well as pharmaceutical companies and the European Medicines Agency, are preparing contingency plans for dealing with the possibility that healthcare-related companies will not have contracts in place in time.
Novartis announced that its BYL719 (alpelisib) met the primary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS) in its Phase III SOLAR-1 trial. The drug is an alpha-specific PI3K inhibitor, a category of cancer drugs that has a troubling history of adverse events.
The high cost of some prescription drugs has been a political target of the White House and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar honed in on one potential solution that he claims his department can control – drug rebates.
Swiss Pharma giant Roche expanded its presence in China with the approval of its lung cancer drug, Alecesna. Roche said the medication was approved by the China National Drug Administration under a priority review.
Sensyne Health, a London-based healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) company founded by biotech entrepreneur Paul Drayson, recently launched an initial public offering (IPO) on the London AIM market. Drayson’s plan is to raise $78 million. It’s just one of many companies that are exploiting advances in computing, data science and AI to help identify and develop potential new drugs.
Genentech is slashing 223 jobs at its South San Francisco headquarters, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification posted on a California state government website. The layoffs will go into effect on Aug. 31, according to the WARN posting.
BioNTech, headquartered in Mainz, Germany, and Pfizer, based in New York City, signed a multi-year research-and-development deal to develop mRNA-based flu vaccines.
The last two weeks have marked the second-quarterly financial report by numerous biopharma companies. Here’s a quick look at some of the major ones.
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