Manufacturing and Production

A new partnership between MSD and Harvard University hopes to combine the expertise of both parties to carve a path forward in the identification of new treatment pathways to treat cancer with immune-oncology therapies.

The collaboration will run for up to four years, supplying the necessary funding for efforts to uncover novel targets within the immune system for future cancer treatments.

Image Credit: US Air Force Valerie Monroy

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has announced its acceptance of Buvidal (buprenorphine prolonged-release solution for subcutaneous injection) from Swedish pharma and biotech firm Camurus, approving its use for patients on NHS Scotland for the treatment of opioid dependence.

The decision covers patients over the age of 16, administered weekly or monthly “within a framework of medical, social and psychological treatment”.

A chlamydia vaccine has shown to be safe in a Phase 1 clinical trial, according to a study published in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The first-in-human trial of 35 women found that there were no serious adverse reactions to the CTH522 chlamydia vaccine.

The trial at Hammersmith hospital in London found the drug was safe and well tolerated, as the most common adverse event reported was mild local injection site reactions.

Image Credit: NIAID

Health professionals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are now offering two experimental drugs to people infected with Ebola, after they proved highly effective in ensuring survival in a multi-drug clinical trial.

Regeneron’s combination of three monoclonal antibodies, REGN-EB3, and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease’s (NIAID’s) drug mAB114, showed respective survival rates of 71% and 66% in a clinical trial in the DRC.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has turned down Vertex’ cystic fibrosis drug Orkambi on the grounds that it is not good value for money.

Scotland’s cost-effectiveness body rejected the $272,000 a year drug as a treatment for cystic fibrosis in patients aged two and older due to “significant uncertainty around their overall health benefits in the long-term, in relation to their costs.”

Orkambi could benefit 330 people in Scotland, a region which has one of the highest incidences of cystic fibrosis in the UK.

This week’s top story covered the scandal surrounding Novartis over its covering up of faulty data from the FDA. The Swiss firm’s integrity was called into question after it waited until it’s $2.1 million gene therapy had been approved before informing the US regulator of inaccuracies in its data.

New Phase 3 data have been revealed on Eli Lilly’s Emgality (galcanezumab-gnlm), detailing its success in meeting all of its primary and secondary endpoints as a preventive treatment for chronic and episodic migraine in patients who have previously failed to control their condition with other migraine medications.

Specifically, the indicated patient population refers to those who have found inadequate relief with two to four different standard-of-care migraine preventive medication categories, either because of efficacy or safety and tolerability reasons.