Page 35 - Bio Developments News Today

While the last two years have seen the successful development of COVID-19 vaccines, the emergence of variants highlights the speed at which the pandemic - or indeed any other virus threat - can evolve. As a result, development of novel vaccine candidates that could offer broad protection is being stepped up.

BioNTech and Crescendo, a clinical stage immuno-oncology company developing targeted T cell enhancing therapeutics, have entered a multi-target discovery collaboration to develop novel immunotherapies for cancer and other diseases.

Alexion, AstraZeneca’s Rare Disease group, has entered into an exclusive global collaboration and licence agreement with Neurimmune AG for NI006, an investigational human monoclonal antibody currently in Phase Ib development for the treatment of transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM).

Bayer AG and Mammoth Biosciences, Inc., have announced a strategic collaboration and option agreement for the use of Mammoth’s CRISPR systems to develop in vivo gene-editing therapies.

Pfizer and BioNTech, in what will be the third mRNA vaccine collaboration between the two companies, are teaming up on the development of a vaccine for the prevention of shingles.

Clover Biopharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biotech developing novel vaccines and biologic therapeutic candidates, has started construction on a new R&D Center in Zhangjiang Biotech and Pharmaceutical Industrial Base in Shanghai.

Biopharmaceutical company ImmixBio has been granted Rare Pediatric Disease (RPD) designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for IMX-110 for the treatment of a life-threatening form of pediatric cancer in children, rhabdomyosarcoma.

December 2021 saw the launch of a new US based biotech, Mythic Therapeutics, with an oversubscribed Series B financing round of US$103m.

Evotec SE has received a €7.5m ($8.5m) grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the development of EVT075, a potential immunomodulatory therapy against COVID-19.

As 2021 draws to a close, we take a look at the COVID-19 vaccine development landscape and some of the candidates progressing through clinical trials.