Industry Update

Abstract

This Industry Update covers the period 1–31 March 2014 and is based on information sourced from company press releases, scientific literature, patents and various news websites. This month saw some significant commercial activity with Baxter (IL, USA) announcing a split, Corium an initial public offering and Vectura a major acquisition, which both expands its development pipeline and also gives it access to another inhalation device platform. A number of technologies are under development that enable the transfer of drugs across the blood–brain barrier and MedImmune (MD, USA) continued its interest in the area by announcing a new deal with BiOasis (Vancouver, Canada). In another drug-delivery deal, Caisson (TX, USA) announced an expansion of its HEPtune collaboration with Novo Nordisk (Bagsværd, Denmark). Clinical progress was reported by Arrowhead Research Corporation for its RNAi therapeutic for the treatment of chronic hepatitis, which began a Phase IIa study, and Ocular Therapeutix (MA, USA) embarked on its Phase III clinical program to evaluate the safety and efficacy of its dexamethasone formulation. In the regulatory arena, the US FDA approved oral treatment from Celegene (NJ, USA) for psoriatic arthritis and Avanir (CA, USA) announced the FDA has accepted its new drug application for a nasally delivered sumatriptan for the treatment of migraine. A paper in Nature described an 'on-skin' system that can monitor patients, deliver drugs and communicate data. A paper published by a group form University of Illinois (IL, USA) described a biodegradable battery that could be used to power implanted devices used to deliver drugs.