Aligos crumbles after axing lead asset, as analysts rue another flop in ‘beaten-down’ sector

January 7, 2022 07:21 AM ESTUpdated 08:18 AM

Aligos crumbles after axing lead asset, as analysts rue another flop in 'beaten-down' sector

Max Gelman

Senior Editor

Aligos Therapeutics took a beating Thursday after reporting it is stopping development on its lead program for chronic hepatitis B.

The biotech’s shares $ALGS closed down 57% and fell into penny stock territory Thursday, following a morning press release saying Aligos’ ALG-010133 program did not prove efficacious at the dose tested in a Phase I study. Additionally, the company concluded that higher doses were also unlikely to be effective, and ultimately decided to axe the candidate altogether.

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MedTech clinical trials require a unique regulatory and study design approach and so engaging a highly experienced CRO to ensure compliance and accurate data across all stages is critical to development milestones.

Innovative MedTech Demands Specialist Clinical Trial Regulatory Affairs and Design

Tom Avery

Scientific and Medical Affairs Specialist, Medical Devices

Avance Clinical is the Australian CRO for international biotechs providing world-class clinical research services with FDA-accepted data across all phases. With Avance Clinical, biotech companies can leverage Australia’s supportive clinical trials environment which includes no IND requirement plus a 43.5% Government incentive rebate on clinical spend. The CRO has been delivering clinical drug development services for international biotechs for FDA and EMA regulatory approval for the past 24 years. The company has been recognized for the past two consecutive years with the prestigious Frost & Sullivan CRO Best Practices Award and a finalist in Informa Pharma’s Best CRO award for 2022.

Mathai Mammen (Rob Tannenbaum, Endpoints News at BIO 2018)

August 8, 2022 07:54 PM EDTUpdated August 9, 06:57 AM

People

Mathai Mammen makes an abrupt exit as head of the big R&D group at J&J

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

In an after-the-bell shocker, J&J announced Monday evening that Mathai Mammen has abruptly exited J&J as head of its top-10 R&D group.

Recruited from Merck five years ago, where the soft-spoken Mammen was being groomed as the successor to Roger Perlmutter, he had been one of the top-paid R&D chiefs in biopharma. His group spent $12 billion last year on drug development, putting it in the top 5 in the industry.

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August 10, 2022 07:33 AM EDT

Pharma

Amid massive restructuring, Biogen looks to reduce physical presence in Boston

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Biogen is putting a sizable chunk of office and research space in Kendall Square and Weston, MA up for sublease, marking another big change as the biotech grapples with the aftershock of a disastrous and controversial rollout for its Alzheimer’s drug.

The company calls it “part of Biogen’s overall implementation of the ‘Future of Work,’ which is allowing us to optimize our footprint and reduce the amount of space we occupy, taking into consideration new elements such as the hybrid work model,” the Boston Globe reported, quoting a spokesperson.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Chief Scientific Officer

Experimental Drug Development Centre

Singapore

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Robert Califf, FDA commissioner (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

August 10, 2022 07:19 AM EDT

FDA+

Hoping to expand monkeypox vaccine supply, US paves the way for new route of administration

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

After making it clear that the US’ current monkeypox vaccine supply is insufficient, the FDA on Tuesday authorized a new route of administration that should increase the number of available doses by five-fold.

Regulators cleared Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine for intradermal injection in adults older than 18. Unlike subcutaneous injection — the current method by which vaccine is delivered under the skin — an intradermal jab goes directly into the skin. It’s believed that this method requires less vaccine, since the dermis is rich in dendritic cells which specialize in taking up foreign antigens and presenting them to the immune system, according to Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Illustration: Kim Ryu for Endpoints News

August 9, 2022 07:00 AM EDTUpdated 08:48 AM

R&D

In Focus

Why non-opioid pain drugs keep failing — and what's next for the field

Lei Lei Wu

News Reporter

In 1938, Rita Levi-Montalcini was forced to move her lab into her bedroom in Turin, as Mussolini’s facist government expelled Jewish people from studying or working in schools in Italy. Levi-Montalcini, then just a few years out of medical school and using sewing needles as scalpels in her makeshift lab, would soon discover nerve growth factor, or NGF, in chicken embryos.

Her discoveries formed the basis of our understanding of the peripheral nervous system and how cells talk to each other, and Levi-Montalcini went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1986. Much later, NGF was hailed as a promising target for new pain therapies, with some analysts quoting an $11 billion market. However, the latest anti-NGF candidate, Pfizer and Eli Lilly’s tanezumab, was rejected by the FDA last year because of a side effect that dissolved bone in some of its patients.

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Samantha Du, Zai Lab CEO

August 10, 2022 06:35 AM EDT

R&D

Anyone still looking for a CD47? Zai Lab shelves PhI program after reviewing 'competitive landscape'

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Over the past few years, the promise of blocking CD47 — a “don’t eat me” signal co-opted by cancer cells — has sent drugmakers big and small into a frenzy. But one biotech is now bowing out.

Zai Lab is deprioritizing ZL-1201, its CD47 inhibitor, scrapping plans for a Phase II trial. It will now “pursue out-licensing opportunities,” the company said in its Q2 update. The decision was based on a review of the competitive landscape, it added, without going into further details.

Steve Paul, Karuna Therapeutics CEO (Third Rock)

August 8, 2022 08:58 AM EDTUpdated 10:13 AM

R&D

Karuna's schizophrenia drug passes a closely-watched PhIII test, will head to FDA in mid-2023

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

An investigational pill that combines a former Eli Lilly CNS compound with an overactive bladder drug was better than placebo at reducing a scale of symptoms experienced by patients with schizophrenia in a Phase III trial.

Karuna Therapeutics’ drug passed the primary goal in EMERGENT-2, the Boston biotech said early Monday morning, alongside quarterly earnings. The study is the first of Karuna’s four Phase III clinical trials to read out in schizophrenia and will provide the backbone to the biotech’s first drug approval application, slated for mid-2023.

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ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Senior Project Manager

CAI

Boston, MA, USA

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HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra (Patrick Semansky/AP Images)

August 9, 2022 01:48 PM EDTUpdated 03:45 PM

Pharma

US weighs new route of administration for monkeypox vaccine as cases climb — report

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

Less than a week after HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra declared monkeypox a national health emergency, reports have emerged that the US plans to extend its vaccine supply by opting for a different route of administration.

Officials are expected to call for intradermal injection of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine — the only shot approved specifically for monkeypox in the US — as opposed to subcutaneous injection, unnamed sources told both the New York Times and Washington Post on Tuesday.

August 9, 2022 01:07 PM EDTUpdated 04:25 PM

Pharma

Marketing

'Messy at best': Is the US repeating the same Covid missteps with monkeypox messaging?

Beth Snyder Bulik

Senior Editor

When Kyle Planck first suspected he might have monkeypox in late June, he went to the CDC website and found six photos of different types of lesions. And that was about it for general public information.

Planck, who is a sixth-year PhD pharmacology researcher at Weill Cornell, kept looking though and found a separate part of the CDC website meant for healthcare professionals. There he found a medical slide deck with more pictures, professional journal articles and more details about symptoms and diagnosis.

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