Short­age of mon­keys slowed down Eli Lil­ly's Covid-19 an­ti­body part­ner. And it's a prob­lem for every­one

It may not be sur­pris­ing that Shang­hai Jun­shi Bio­sciences has pushed back some clin­i­cal tri­als to pri­or­i­tize its Eli Lil­ly-part­nered Covid-19 an­ti­body. But what ex­act­ly was suck­ing up their time is al­most cer­tain to raise some eye­brows: The com­pa­ny spent months find­ing enough mon­keys on which to test the ex­per­i­men­tal drug.

Jun­shi’s plight high­lights a se­ri­ous, if oft-un­der­looked, chal­lenge that’s be­set the whole bio­med­ical re­search en­ter­prise. Test­ing a mol­e­cule on non-hu­man pri­mates is of­ten a cru­cial fi­nal step be­fore it can be moved in­to the clin­ic, but a con­flu­ence of fac­tors have re­sult­ed in a short­age in both the US and Eu­rope just as drug­mak­ers were scram­bling to put their ex­per­i­men­tal pro­grams through tri­als at record speed.

Jun­shi COO Feng Hui told in­vestors on a call on Fri­day that the short­age was acute be­tween Feb­ru­ary and June, when the biotech was com­pet­ing with oth­er com­pa­nies and in­sti­tutes.

But the is­sue re­mains un­re­solved. Just days ago, the Eu­ro­pean An­i­mal Re­search As­so­ci­a­tion brought at­ten­tion to a “grow­ing short­age of pur­pose-bred macaque mon­key” used in Covid-19 and oth­er vi­tal re­search.

One of the main bot­tle­necks is how Chi­na, a main source of mon­keys for med­ical re­search, has banned the ex­port from breed­ing fa­cil­i­ties since the be­gin­ning of 2020 cit­ing con­cerns about the spread of the coro­n­avirus.

“The on­go­ing em­bar­go is now be­gin­ning to have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for re­search in Eu­rope and the rest of the world,” the group wrote in a state­ment. Kirk Leech, the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, added: “Mon­keys play a crit­i­cal role in the de­vel­op­ment of vac­cines, such as those for Covid-19, and ur­gent in­ter­na­tion­al co-op­er­a­tion is need­ed to lift the ban.”

In a let­ter urg­ing the WHO to in­ter­vene, EARA ar­gued that “while the sus­pen­sion was pru­dent at the time it has be­come clear that an­i­mals ex­port­ed from Chi­na pos­sess a very low risk of trans­mit­ting any com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­ease.” Re­search mon­keys, they added, are al­so sub­ject to strict rules in han­dling and trans­porta­tion, in­clud­ing quar­an­tine and per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment re­quire­ments.

Still, those fac­ing the chal­lenge are not op­ti­mistic that the prob­lem will be solved soon. As the At­lantic re­port­ed in Au­gust, Bio­qual — which has done pri­mate re­search for Mod­er­na’s vac­cine and sev­er­al oth­er Covid-19 play­ers — said while it was ini­tial­ly able to reuse some an­i­mals from non-dis­ease stud­ies, the sup­ply had been used up.

New macaques al­so cost $10,000, dou­ble the orig­i­nal price.

“This may just be the be­gin­ning,” R. Kei­th Reeves, a vi­rol­o­gist at Har­vard work­ing on HIV, told the At­lantic. “And I think that we’re all prepar­ing for there to be sig­nif­i­cant de­lays.”

For its part, Jun­shi has pro­ceed­ed in­to hu­man tri­als of its an­ti­body. Re­sults from a re­cent study test­ing it in com­bi­na­tion with bam­lanivimab, the an­ti­body de­vel­oped by Eli Lil­ly and Ab­Cellera, im­pressed an­a­lysts and paved the way for an emer­gency use au­tho­riza­tion re­quest. The FDA has grant­ed an EUA for bam­lanivimab.

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

So­cial: AP Im­ages

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Lat­est on ul­tra-rare dis­ease ap­proval; Pos­i­tive, if mixed, signs for Bio­gen's ALS drug; Clay Sie­gall finds a new job; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

Over the last four years, we’ve honored 80 women whose extraordinary accomplishments have changed the game in biopharma R&D. You can now nominate someone to be highlighted in this year’s special report. Details are here.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA spells out how can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers can use one tri­al for both ac­cel­er­at­ed and full ap­provals

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

No­vo Nordisk oral semaglu­tide tri­al shows re­duc­tion in blood sug­ar, plus weight loss

Novo Nordisk is testing higher levels of its oral version of its GLP-1, semaglutide, and its type 2 diabetes trial results released today show reductions in blood sugar as well as weight loss.

In the Phase IIIb trial, Novo compared its oral semaglutide in 25 mg and 50 mg doses with the 14 mg version that’s currently the maximum approved dose. The trial looked at how the doses compared when added to a stable dose of one to three oral antidiabetic medicines in people with type 2 diabetes who were in need of an intensified treatment.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Zhi Hong, Brii Biosciences CEO

Brii Bio­sciences stops man­u­fac­tur­ing Covid-19 an­ti­body com­bo, plans to with­draw EUA re­quest

Brii Biosciences said it will stop manufacturing its Covid-19 antibody combination, sold in China, and is working to withdraw its emergency use authorization request in the US, which it started in October 2021.

The Beijing and North Carolina biotech commercially launched the treatment in China last July but is now axing the work and reverting resources to other “high-priority programs,” per a Friday update. The focus now is namely hepatitis B viral infection, postpartum depression and major depressive disorders.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Clay Siegall, Morphimmune CEO

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

Clay Siegall will be back in the CEO seat, taking the helm of a private startup working on targeted cancer therapies.

It’s been almost a year since Siegall resigned from Seagen, the biotech he co-founded and led for more than 20 years, in the wake of domestic violence allegations by his then-wife. His eventual successor, David Epstein, sold the company to Pfizer in a $43 billion deal unveiled last week.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

A panel of outside advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended that the agency grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen despite the drug failing the primary goal of its Phase III study, an endorsement that could pave a path forward for the treatment.

By a 9-0 vote, members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee said there was sufficient evidence that tofersen’s effect on a certain protein associated with ALS is reasonably likely to predict a benefit for patients. But panelists stopped short of advocating for a full approval, voting 3-5 against (with one abstention) and largely citing the failed pivotal study.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Sijmen de Vries, Pharming CEO

FDA ap­proves Pharm­ing drug for ul­tra-rare im­mun­od­e­fi­cien­cy dis­ease

US regulators cleared an ultra-rare drug from Pharming Group, by way of Novartis, on Friday afternoon.

The Dutch biotech said the FDA greenlit leniolisib for an immunodeficiency disease known as activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta (PI3Kδ) syndrome, or APDS. People 12 years and older can receive the oral drug, to be marketed as Joenja, beginning early next month, Pharming said, five days ahead of the decision deadline set by the FDA as part of a priority review.

Ly­me vac­cine test com­ple­tion is pushed back by a year as Pfiz­er, Val­ne­va say they'll ad­just tri­al

Valneva and Pfizer have adjusted the end date for the Phase III study of their investigational Lyme disease vaccine, pushing it back by a year after issues at a contract researcher led to thousands of US patients being dropped from the test.

In a March 20 update to clinicaltrials.gov, Valneva and Pfizer moved the primary completion date on the trial, called VALOR, from the end of 2024 to the end of 2025.

Endpoints Premium

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.