Manufacturing and Production

Novartis has agreed to buy the rights for a novel antibody MOR106 from the Belgo-Dutch pharmaceutical research company Galapagos and the German biotech company MorphoSys.

The deal in which Novartis has agreed to pay €95 million, will transfer the exclusive global development and marketing rights for the atopic dermatitis (eczema) drug to the Swiss multinational.

Additional payments, royalties and fees may be made if the drug achieves previously agreed upon milestones.

In response to Donald Trump’s plan to lower drug prices in the US, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) have proposed a plan to transform the convoluted system through which payments in the drug supply chain are made.  

British MPs have voted for the UK's continued participation in the regulatory network operated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) after Brexit.

MPs yesterday voted 305-301 in favour of continued involvement with the EMA after Brexit. The government will now be tasked with securing a deal in which the UK is able to remain an “active participant” in the EMA following the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

Microsoft business magnate Bill Gates has joined a coalition of philanthropists in committing more than $30 million towards the development of an Alzheimer’s diagnostic test.

Gates joins former Estée Lauder chief Leonard Lauder, the Dolby Family and the Charles and Helen Schwab foundation, among others, in donating towards the launch of the Diagnostic Accelerator which aims to develop a “reliable, affordable, and accessible” diagnostic test for the neurodegenerative disease.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Syracuse University have modified a key ingredient of current diabetes drugs to produce a compound which was effective in treating hyperglycaemia in animal trials but that did not induce the problematic side effects associated with many of the drugs currently available.

Roche is celebrating the news that its investigational influenza drug baloxavir marboxil performed well at Phase 3, meeting its primary endpoint and reducing symptoms in patients at a high risk of complications from the flu.

Johnson & Johnson and research arm Janssen have taken the decision to terminate a Phase 3 trial evaluating the efficacy of its SGLT2 inhibitor Invokana (canagliflozin), but not because it had proved ineffective.

On the contrary, after the drug met its pre-specified efficacy criteria in the prevention of clinically important renal and cardiovadcvular outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D), the company deemed it pertinent to close the study early.

The FDA has warned that criminals have been targeting customers who bought medicines online or over the phone with “official-looking, but fake, warning letters”.

Customers who had ordered drug products online or over the phone instead received fake warning letters, purported to be from the FDA, which state that the US regulator had determined the customer in question had violated drug law and that they were under investigation.

Scientists studying the gene editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 have discovered the technique appears to frequently cause genetic damage that may slip by undetected.

The findings published in the journal Nature Biotechnology suggest that the technology may be more dangerous than previously thought.