New Antibiotic Could Fight Resistance, And Other Recent Pharma News
By Anna Rose Welch, Editorial & Community Director, Advancing RNA
This week in pharma news, a new antibiotic could be the answer to a global health crisis; changes in Indian packaging regulations could lower consumer risk; and a major merger could be good news for the future development of rare disease treatments.
According to Mumbai Mirror, the Indian Institute of Packaging (IIP) is pushing for a new regulation, which will require an expiry date to be printed on the backside of each pill in the strip. Currently, the expiry date is printed behind one pill in the strip. If a consumer tears off the labeled pill, there is a greater risk that an expired pill could be consumed. One of the main concerns about implementing this packaging regulation, however, is that it could cause a significant spike in printing costs.
A new antibiotic, teixobactin, could prove to be a game changer in the fight against antibiotic resistance, says The Atlantic. Teixobactin attacks two polymers in the bacterium that are responsible for building the bacterial cell wall. Researchers admit that this antibiotic may experience bacteria resistance down the line, but they expect it would occur at a significantly slower rate than other antibiotics. Lead researcher Kim Lewis expects teixobactin to be like Vancomycin, which also targets bacterial cell-wall polymer. Developed in the 60’s, Vancomycin only began to lose its strength in the 90’s.
Shire has bounced back from the recent dissolution of the AbbVie deal by acquiring NPS Pharma for about $5.2 billion, according to USA Today. This acquisition will allow Shire to expand its market to include medicines for rare diseases.
According to Pharmaceutical Processing, AstraZeneca’s MedImmune has announced a licensing agreement with Omnis. MedImmune will combine its immunotherapies with Omnis’ oncolytic virus program, a genetically engineered strain of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). If MedImmune is successful in its development of the oncolytic virus program, it has the option of commercializing the program.
Merck has announced that it will be submitting two applications to the FDA by mid-year 2015, says Reuters. The first application will be for marketing approval of grazoprevir/elbasvir, a two-drug, single-pill combination treatment for hepatitis C. Merck will then submit an application to expand usage of Keytruda, its new PD-1 inhibitor, immunotherapy treatment for non-small-cell lung cancer.
Seattle Genetics and Bristol-Meyers Squibb announced a clinical trial collaboration agreement to launch two clinical Phase 1 and 2 trials, claims RTT News. The clinical trials will test to determine the efficacy of Seattle Genetics’ antibody-drug conjugate, Adcetris, in combination with BMS’ immunotherapy, Opdivo. The first trial, conducted by Seattle Genetics, will determine the potential treatments for relapsed or refractory Hodgkin’s lymphoma. BMS will conduct the second trial to determine the effects of the treatment on relapsed or refractory B-cell and T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.
According to PR Newswire, Hospira submitted a Biologics License Application to the FDA for Retacrit, a proposed biosimilar drug to Amgen’s Epogen and Janssen’s Procrit. This is the fourth biosimilar application submitted to the FDA in recent months, following in the footsteps of Apotex, Sandoz, and Celltrion. If approved, this application will permit Hospira to introduce Retacrit to the market.