DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Vir Biotech slumps to over 3-year low as flu prevention therapy fails trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

July 20 (Reuters) - Vir Biotechnology's (VIR.O) shares plunged 45% to a more than three-year low on Thursday after the company's experimental antibody therapy to prevent a type of flu failed to meet its goals in a mid-stage trial. The biotechnology firm, which came into prominence through its COVID-19 antibody therapy sotrovimab developed in partnership with GSK plc (GSK.L), lost over $1 billion in market capitalization in early trade hit by the therapy's failure. The company said it will conduct further analyses on the trial data to "better understand these outcomes", but TD Cowen analyst Phil Nadeau does not expect the therapy to undergo further development. The company is developing antibody therapies against hepatitis B and D, for which data is expected later this year, and also has development programs for COVID-19, HIV and influenza. Reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh KuberOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Vir Biotechnology's, sotrovimab, Cowen, Phil Nadeau, Nadeau, Leroy Leo, Shailesh Organizations: GSK plc, COVID, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Thomson Locations: Bengaluru

☆ JPMorgan says this biotechnology stock can rally nearly 50% because of its drug pipeline
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Alex Harring | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Vir Biotechnology has an underappreciated opportunity in the flu prevention market, JPMorgan said. He shaved $1 off his price target to $34, which still implies an upside of 48.9% from Friday's close. "Vir Biotechnology holds long-term pipeline opportunities across multiple infectious disease indications including hepatitis B, and Influenza A," he said in a note to clients Monday. He said the stock could see upside when the latest Peninsula study data hits, given it's expected to be a linear read-through from the young adult-focused earlier study. The stock has whiplashed in its first years as a publicly traded company, recording advances of 113% and 56.4% in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

But doctors often recommended the monoclonal antibody for people taking certain immunosuppressive medications, such as cancer patients or transplant recipients, since Paxlovid can interact negatively with several of those drugs. Casadevall said convalescent plasma is an effective alternative to monoclonal antibodies, but it's more complicated to administer and oversee. Pharma companies haven't given up on the promise of new monoclonal antibody drugs, however. A spokesperson for Eli Lilly said the company is searching for and evaluating monoclonal antibody candidates. Casadevall said new monoclonal antibody drugs are still worth pursuing, since they have proven safe and effective against Covid.

☆ Britain's NICE recommends against NHS use of 5 COVID treatments as not cost-effective
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Maggie Fick | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The review, conducted by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and published on Wednesday, is its first involving COVID-19 treatments as the pandemic enters a new phase. The recommendations are a draft, NICE said, and until final guidance is published, access to COVID-19 medicines will continue as is. NICE acknowledged that there is evidence that Merck's molnupiravir and Gilead Sciences Inc's (GILD.O) hospital-administered antiviral remdesivir are effective at treating COVID-19. It also recommended against three other COVID treatments, including GSK (GSK.L) and partner Vir Biotechnology's (VIR.O) sotrovimab, an antibody therapy that the World Health Organization recommended against in September. One expert said that some of the COVID treatments NICE recommended against are an important part of the British government's current strategy.

☆ WHO 'strongly advises against' use of two COVID treatments
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-15 | by ( Natalie Grover | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

A woman holds a small bottle labelled with a "Coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccine" sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken October 30, 2020. The virus has since evolved, and mounting evidence from lab tests suggests the two therapies - sotrovimab as well as casirivimab-imdevimab - have limited clinical activity against the latest iterations of the virus. Another COVID therapy that emerged early in pandemic was Gilead's (GILD.O) antiviral remdesivir. The WHO expanded its conditional recommendation for the drug, advising that it can be used in patients with severe COVID as well as non-severe COVID patients at the highest risk of hospitalization. There are a handful of existing COVID therapeutics that remain useful in the fight against the virus, and others in development that are expected to also benefit patients.

☆ COVID-ситуация в мире: Число случаев заражения коронавирусом превысило 168 млн
▼ + stars: | 2021-05-27 | by ( ) novostipmr.com time to read: +4 min

Лидером по числу подтверждённых случаев, по данным Университета Джонса Хопкинса, остаются США, где количество выявленных заражённых составляет 33,19 млн человек. Число жертв новой инфекции в мире достигло 3 млн 498 тыс. Еще 9 039 случаев заражения коронавирусом зарегистрировано в России за сутки. Поправились и выписаны 4,65 млн пациентов, в том числе 9 759 за минувшие сутки. С начала распространения коронавируса в России, со 2 марта 2020 года, всего зарегистрировано 5,03 млн случаев коронавирусной инфекции.

Organizations: Университет Джонса Хопкинса, Спутник, Россельхознадзор Locations: США, Индия, Бразилия, Сингапур, Австралия, Бруней, КНР, Новая Зеландия, Гонконг, Макао, Словакия, Колумбия, Россия, Чукотский автономный округ, Крым, РФ, Москва, Петербург, Московская область, Украина, Киев, Днепропетровская, Львовская, Харьковская, Киевская, Молдова, Кишинева, Приднестровье

Search resuls for: "sotrovimab"

6 mentions found