GSK and Vir Biotechnology have ended their influenza collaboration, a move that follows last year’s Phase 2 failure for one of the partnered programs. Vir is now free to continue its flu research on its own, but the company says it’s actively pursuing other partners.
GSK gave Vir Biotechnology a Valentine’s Day break-up message, but it’s not a complete goodbye. Though the two companies are ending their Covid-19 collaboration, they’ll still work together on other respiratory programs, including a prophylactic influenza antibody drug that is in mid-stage clinical development.
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FDA authorization of the Covid-19 antibody drug from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline adds a third antibody drug for treating early cases of the disease that are at risk of progressing to hospitalization. The companies say they plan to launch the drug, named sotrovimab, “in coming weeks.”
The positive data for the antibody drug from Vir Biotechnology and GlaxoSmithKline give a clearer picture of how and when these treatments could help. Last week, a different pivotal study testing the same drug in hospitalized patients yielded murkier results.
Antibody therapies from Brii Biosciences and Vir Biotechnology failed to show sufficient efficacy to advance to the next stage of an NIH-sponsored Covid-19 clinical trial. Apellis Pharmaceuticals and Durect also stopped work on experimental Covid treatments.
The companies said Monday that they had launched the Phase II/III COMET-ICE trial of VIR-7831, which will enroll about 1,300 patients around the world and investigate the drug as a way to prevent hospitalization of high-risk individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2.
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The companies said Monday they had identified the first candidate for clinical trials, a direct-acting antiviral RNA-interference drug that they plan to develop as an inhaled therapy against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Vir Biotechnology, based in San Francisco, has lately made several high-profile development and manufacturing deals with drug companies as well as contract manufacturers, amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Manufacturing is expected to start in October.
The companies plan to focus initially on development of two monoclonal antibody candidates, with the aim of initiating Phase II clinical development in the next three to five months.
The company said it selected two drug candidates for clinical testing as treatments for Covid-19. The lead candidate is able to bind to a region common to the SARS-CoV-2 and 2002-2003 SARS viruses, indicating the viruses may be unable to mutate and become resistant to the drug.
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While all these companies have been involved in developing testing, vaccines and drugs for SARS-CoV-2, fears related to the global coronavirus pandemic have taken their toll on them as well as firms in other sectors.
As of Wednesday, an outbreak of the pandemic virus linked to Biogen management meeting in Boston accounted for 70 of the total 92 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the state of Massachusetts.
Judy Smythe, Bardia Akbari and Niv Caviar have been named as the company's chief operating officer, senior vice president of clinical operations and chief financial officer, respectively.