Industry news

Ferring buys rights to PhIII pain drug from Seikagaku

Nick Paul Taylor / Fierce Biotech

Ferring Pharmaceuticals has secured the rights to a Phase III treatment of radicular leg pain outside of Japan from Seikagaku. The drug, condoliase, is seen by Ferring as giving patients with lumbar disc herniation a nonsurgical way of managing the leg pain resulting from their condition.

New, cleaner opioid offers hope for fewer side effects

Anette Breindl / BioWorld

Chronic pain is an enormous problem, affecting about 10 to 15 percent of the adult population. Another enormous problem? Opioid painkiller addiction, which kills about 30,000 Americans annually. Regulatory responses to that epidemic range from developing abuse-deterrent forms of opioid analgesics to tackling the concept of addiction as an illness rather than a crime. (See BioWorld Today, July 15, 2016.)

A radically inexpensive, non-profit approach can transform drug R&D? Now, wait a minute…

John Carroll / ENDPOINTS

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) isn’t just out to develop new therapies to help the world’s poor. It believes it is on track to, in the words of executive director Bernard Pécoul, “demonstrate that a different model is possible for R&D.”

Class of 2015 a snapshot of the perils in predicting blockbusters

Marie Powers / BioWorld

The first half of 2016 is in the books, and while the biopharma sector's financial results weren't exactly a slam dunk, they did at least keep investors in the paint. As evidence of that, beginning with the closing bell on July 27, the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index has finished above 3,000 for the longest consecutive run since December 2015. (See BioWorld Insight, Aug. 8, 2016.)

New strategy holds promise for detecting bacterial infections in newborns

U.S. National Institute of Health

Researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health have shown that it’s possible to diagnose a bacterial infection from a small sample of blood — based on the immune system’s response to the bacteria — in infants with fevers who are 2 months of age or younger. With additional research, the new technique could be an improvement over the standard method, which requires isolating live bacteria from blood, urine or spinal fluid and growing them in a laboratory culture. The study, funded in part by NIH’sEunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), appears in the Aug. 23, 2016, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Instagram Stories’ appeal for pharma? Familiar platform and no pesky user comments to deal with

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

Instagram has just made social media easier and safer for pharma. Comments can be disabled on Instagram Stories, the new 24-hour disappearing video and photo narrative postings--and that's a key selling point for pharma companies, industry experts told FiercePharmaMarketing.

In biopharmaceutical research, if at first you don’t succeed, try again

Andrew Powaleny / PhRMA

In case you missed it, an article in STAT News today profiles setbacks inside the process of researching new treatments and cures for patients. For America’s biopharmaceutical research companies, setbacks are far more common than success, but these stumbling blocks provide invaluable knowledge that help guide and direct researchers to get one step closer to the next scientific advancement.

Social media-enabled breast cancer trial enrolls 2,000 patients in 7 months

Nick Paul Taylor / Fierce Biotech

Researchers have enrolled 2,000 people with metastatic breast cancer in 7 months using a social media-enabled, direct-to-patient model of recruiting. The study is using social media and blogs to drive patients to a website where they can consent to share medical records and genomic data with the researchers.

NIH researchers discover otulipenia, a new inflammatory disease

U.S. National Institute of Health

National Institutes of Health researchers have discovered a rare and sometimes lethal inflammatory disease — otulipenia — that primarily affects young children. They have also identified anti-inflammatory treatments that ease some of the patients’ symptoms: fever, skin rashes, diarrhea, joint pain and overall failure to grow or thrive.

No thanks? Patients don’t credit pharma for co-pay discount programs, survey finds

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

Here's an unintended consequence of high drug prices: Patients feel entitled to pharma's help in paying for them. Patients don't give drugmakers much, if any, credit for their discount programs on expensive meds, a recent survey by Treato found. They don't feel much gratitude for the co-pay help at all, in fact.