Boehringer Ingelheim

The University of Oxford, the Earlham Institute, and global pharmaceutical companies Biogen and Boehringer Ingelheim are partnering to investigate a new drug target for the treatment of schizophrenia.

The project is the first to be funded by the international Psychiatry Consortium, a £4 million collaboration between seven global pharmaceutical companies and two leading research charities, convened and managed by the Medicines Discovery Catapult, that supports high-value drug discovery projects in this area of unmet patient need.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Enara Bio have entered into a strategic collaboration and licensing agreement to research and develop novel targeted cancer immunotherapies.

The collaboration combines Boehringer Ingelheim’s approach to tackling cancer through pairing leading science with innovative immune-oncology platforms – such as oncolytic viruses and cancer vaccines – with Enara Bio’s expertise in cancer antigen identification. The aim is to provide potential new therapies for patients with difficult-to-treat lung and gastrointestinal cancers.

The European Commission has moved to authorise Boehringer Ingelheim’s nintedanib in Europe for the treatment of systemic sclerosis-associated interstitial lung disease (SSc-ILD) in adult patients, it has emerged.

The decision follows a positive recommendation from the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use at the end of February. It also comes on the heels of an FDA approval in September last year, meaning the drug has now been approved in 15 countries including Japan, Canada and Brazil.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly’s have been dealt a blow from the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee (EMDAC), after the independent panel voted against the use of the pair’s SGLT2 inhibitor empagliflozin (branded as Jardiance) as an add-on insulin therapy in the treatment of type 1 diabetes.

The drug is already approved, with the FDA passing approval in 2014 for the reduction of blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetes patients.

Boehringer Ingelheim’s Ofev (nintedanib) capsules have now secured marketing authorisation in the US, it has emerged, for the treatment of interstitial lung disease associated with systemic sclerosis or scleroderma (SSc-ILD), a rare lung condition.

The decision, made under the FDA’s Priority Review pathway, was supported by data which demonstrated that the drug reduced lung function decline compared to placebo, and makes Ofev the first and only FDA-approved therapy to slow the rate of decline in this condition,

Boehringer Ingelheim is set to join forces with Lupin after the pair sealed a partnership agreement to develop, license, and commercialise the latter’s MEK inhibitor compound in combination with Boehringer’s KRAS inhibitor therapies for the treatment of difficult-to-treat KRAS-driven lung and gastrointestinal cancers.

In preclinical studies, this combination therapy, combined from both companies’ products, was shown to increase anti-tumour activity through their “complementary mechanisms of action in keeping KRAS-driven cancers in check”.

German firm Boehringer Ingelheim has released new interim data from a real-world evidence study investigating the efficacy of Giotrif/Gilotrif (afatinib) followed by AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso (osimertinib) in the treatment of epidermal growth factor receptor mutation-positive (EGFRM+) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with acquired T790M mutations.

Previously released data from the study detailed overall survival (OS) rates after two years and after 30 months, but the incorporation of electronic health record data from a sub-set of US patients identified the median OS ben

Boehringer Ingelheim has bought Swiss biotech AMAL Therapeutics, a company focused on cancer immunotherapy and cancer vaccines.

AMAL’s lead candidate, a stage IV colorectal cancer vaccine ATP128, is set to begin its first in-human trials later this month.

AMAL is headquartered on the medical campus of the University of Geneva. The biotech is a spin-out from the Swiss university which was backed by both corporate and institutional investors which include Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and High-Tech Gründerfonds.

Boehringer Ingelheim has opened a new manufacturing facility in the town of Sant Cugat del Vallès near Barcelona.

The new plant will manufacture Boehringer Ingelheim’s COPD and asthma drug Respimat.

The Catalonia facility has seen Boheringer invest €120 million into the new plant which will see the creation of up to 200 new jobs.