Drug Discovery and Development Archives - Page 159 of 159

FDA clears Propeller Health sensor to work with Symbocort inhaler

Propeller Health announced that it received FDA 510(k) clearance for connecting patients using its Symbicort Inhaler to its digital health platform.

The Madison, Wis.-based company’s digital health platform already connects to inhalers used by asthma and COPD patients, including ones manufactured by Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Orion, along with other generic equivalents.

Propeller’s digital health platform helps users with asthma or COPD manage their condition in tandem with their clinician by attaching sensors to existing inhalers to deliver insights on medication use to the Propeller app on their smartphone. Then, users can share insights with their clinician to help inform their treatment plan.

Clinical studies have revealed that the Propeller platform can increase asthma control by up to 63 percent, increase medication adherence by up to 58 percent, reduce asthma-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations b…

FDA clears Propeller Health sensor to work with Symbocort inhaler

Propeller Health announced that it received FDA 510(k) clearance for connecting patients using its Symbicort Inhaler to its digital health platform.

The Madison, Wis.-based company’s digital health platform already connects to inhalers used by asthma and COPD patients, including ones manufactured by Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Orion, along with other generic equivalents.

Propeller sensors are designed to attach to existing inhalers and deliver insights on medication to the Propeller app on the user’s smartphone. The information delivered to the app can then be shared with clinicians to help inform treatment plans, according to a news release.

The company said its platform has shown in previous clinical studies to increase asthma control by up to 63% and increase medication adherence by up to 58%. It’s also shown to reduce asthma-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations by as much as 57% and reduce…

Insitro raises $143m Series B

Machine-learning-driven drug discovery and development company Insitro announced today that it raised $143 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing round.

San Francisco-based Insitro said in a news release that it plans to use the funds to build its foundations of technology and automation, enabling data generation at a larger scale, expanding its capabilities for creating predictive models of human disease.

The company also plans to use the money for helping to identify patient segmentation biomarkers and advancing therapeutics in genetically-defined patient populations. Other uses of the funds include building partnerships along the R&D chain to accelerate drug discovery and development.

Insitro is working on applying bioengineering technologies to creating data sets that allow for machine learning methods to assist in pharmaceutical R&D.

“Since our founding, insitro has been focused on building a data-driven drug discovery and de…

Merck, IAVI work to develop COVID-19 vaccine

Merck (NYSE:MRK) and IAVI announced today that they are collaborating to develop an investigational vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 for preventing COVID-19.

The vaccine candidate is slated to use the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) technology used as the basis for Merck’s Ervebo Ebola Zaire virus vaccine, which was the first such vaccine to be approved for use in humans, according to a news release. Merck also signed an agreement with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, to provide funding for the collaboration.

“COVID-19 is an enormous scientific, medical, and global health challenge,” Merck Research Laboratories president Dr. Roger Perlmutter said in the release. “Merck is collaborating with organizations around the globe to develop anti-infectives and vaccines that aim to alleviate suffering caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection.

“Merck and IAVI are…

Moderna prices $1.3 public offering following positive COVID-19 vaccine results

Shortly after touting positive results from its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, Moderna announced the pricing of an offering of 17.6 million shares of its common stock.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based clinical-stage biotechnology company announced yesterday that it received positive interim clinical data from trials for its mRNA-1273 vaccine candidate against coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

Get the full story at our sister site, MassDevice.

Selux Diagnostics receives BARDA funding to speed development of rapid AST platform

[Image courtesy of Selux Diagnostics]

The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has awarded Selux Diagnostics $9.6 million to fund its development of a next-generation phenotyping (NGP) platform to treat superbug infections and combat antibiotic resistance.

The $9.6 million is the third funding tranche the company has received from BARDA as part of the company’s milestone-based contract. BARDA has provided Selux $30.4 million in funding to date.

“BARDA has offered strong support in the development of the Selux NGP platform and has led the way in the successful government-private sector collaboration to solve one of the world’s toughest health challenges — antibiotic resistance,” said Selux CEO Steve Lufkin. “This leadership is especially vital now, as new data indicate the antibiotic resistance crisis is even more threatening than previously understood. BARDA is leveraged…