Pharmaceutical industry leaders are increasingly focused on infectious diseases amid the COVID-19 pandemic and growing concern over treatment-resistant superbugs. In July, a group of drugmakers including Pfizer announced they raised almost $1 billion for a partnership promising to deliver two to four new antibiotics by 2030.
Apart from vaccines, Pfizer’s anti-infective pipeline was thin before the Amplyx acquisition, with a treatment for COVID-19 in Phase 1 studies and an antibiotic in Phase 3. But the company’s head of hospital products, Angela Lukin, said Wednesday that Pfizer is “deeply committed” to its infectious disease program.
Fosmanogepix could prove to be a weapon against fungal infections because of its mechanism of action, Pfizer said. The Food and Drug Administration hasn’t approved a new class of antifungal therapies in almost 20 years. Researchers are currently studying both oral and intravenous forms of the drug, which in theory would help patients transition from the hospital to home. READ MORE
By Kristin Jensen
Source: biopharmadive.com
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to MedTrace for their method of diagnosing the human heart via 15O-water PET. The patented method is the foundation of the company’s software aQuant, currently under development. Hendrik “Hans” Harms, PhD and Senior Scientist at MedTrace, and Jens Soerensen, Professor and Clinical Advisor to MedTrace, are the originators of the method.
Teresa Graham, currently head of global product strategy for Roche pharma, will become the division’s new CEO next month, Roche said Thursday. Simultaneously, Roche is elevating Levi Garraway, chief medical officer, to the executive committee.
Fierce Pharma has obtained internal documents and video of a town hall meeting conducted this week describing what J&J called a “comprehensive review” of its portfolio. Moving forward, J&J plans to operate its vaccines and infectious diseases outfits as one group, the executives explained.
