Clinical research
Summit Therapeutics scores a $2 billion equity investment from AstraZeneca to support ivonescimab’s late-stage development; uniQure crashes after four-year data from its Huntington’s disease gene therapy failed to impress; Kyverna Therapeutics brings new light to a struggling CAR T space in autoimmune disease.
It’s not enough for organizations to want scientists to think like entrepreneurs. They have to incentivize and reward for that behavior.
The results are nevertheless “unprecedented,” UniQure executives said on an investor call Tuesday, emphasizing that the updated natural history database used as the control group for the Phase 1/2 study of AMT-130 underestimates disease progression.
The all-stock deal gives Summit Therapeutics enough money to see through Phase 3 trials for the PD-1/VEGF bispecific ivonescimab—but keeps the asset fully in-house without giving up licensing rights.
Kodiak Sciences will head to regulators with one of the candidates, an anti-VEGF antibody called zenkuda, after the late-stage results.
Stem cell therapies vary widely yet many physicians still treat them as interchangeable. A more credible model requires diagnostics, product characterization and conventional medical context to determine who and when should receive regenerative treatment.
Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Argenx and more are unlocking new immunology targets and looking to improve on existing ones in an attempt to catch some of the magic brought about by AbbVie’s Humira and Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent.
Ten patients out of 20 who received Johnson & Johnson and Legend Biotech’s Carvykti remained alive at five years of follow up.
While Acadia Pharmaceuticals’ candidate has missed the main goal of a Phase 2 trial, the company is still moving forward with the anti-psychosis candidate in Alzheimer’s disease as well as Lewy body dementia.
Analysts were keen to see a new modality compete with Roche’s approved drug Lucentis in the late-stage trial but new safety issues could complicate the future for Merck’s candidate.
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