Immunity and Immunization - Pharmacist Digest

STAT+: Vertex to buy Alpine Immune Sciences for $4.9 billion

STAT

APRIL 10, 2024

Vertex Pharmaceuticals will buy Alpine Immune Sciences, a maker of protein-based medicines that harness the immune system, for $4.9 billion, the companies announced Wednesday. It is the largest acquisition in Vertex’s history.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Researchers identify ‘molecular switch’ in lupus that could stymie harmful immune response

STAT

JULY 10, 2024

But new research asks the question: What if immune cells could be turned back into good guys, and actually help save tissue damaged by autoimmune disease? Lupus is complicated because it wields the body’s own defenses against itself, generating a continuous immune misfire. Read the rest…

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

STAT+: Borrowing an idea from cancer immunotherapy, scientists make old-mice immune systems youthful again

STAT

MARCH 27, 2024

Researchers studying the ways these systems change with age refer to them collectively as “immunosenescence,” or, more poetically, the “ twilight of immunity. ” But even as scientific understanding of the phenomenon has grown over the past decade, the forces driving it remain murky.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

STAT+: Like a vampire, some cancer cells can suck the energy source from immune cells

STAT

OCTOBER 13, 2023

As elite hunters of the immune system, T cells are constantly prowling our bodies for diseased cells to attack. New research shows that some cancer cells can fire a long nanotube projection into the T cell that, like a vampire’s fang, sucks energy-creating mitochondria from the immune cell, turning the predator into prey.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Smoking impairs immune response, even after quitting, new study says

STAT

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

The study , published Wednesday in Nature, underscores the importance of never lighting up that first cigarette, based on its conclusion that smoking has much longer harmful effects on immune responses than previously understood. Read the rest…

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

HHS review of a vaccine contract sparks worries about preparedness for a potential bird flu pandemic

STAT

MARCH 3, 2025

The “swine flu” virus was distinct enough from previous H1N1 viruses that it could cause a pandemic, but it had enough genetic similarities to viruses that had circulated for decades that many people had some immune defenses, which blunted its severity. Read the rest…

Immunity

Opinion: The next frontier in biomedicine: AI models of the human immune system

STAT

OCTOBER 6, 2023

If the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us one thing, it is how little we really know about how the human immune system works. Decoding and harnessing the power of the human immune system is one of the great frontiers of biomedicine.

Immunity

Covid’s scientific silver lining: A chance to watch the human immune system respond in real time

STAT

MARCH 28, 2024

For scientists who study the human immune system, the penny dropped at different points in the early frenetic months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Looking back now, many marvel at the realization that they witnessed and were able to chronicle something no other scientists had ever actually seen.

Immunity

STAT+: Moderna says data show its combination Covid-flu vaccine generates a strong immune response

STAT

JUNE 10, 2024

Moderna announced Monday that, in a Phase 3 clinical trial, its combination Covid-19 and influenza vaccine generated stronger immune responses in older adults than individual vaccines that target those viruses.

Immunity

Amid measles outbreaks, U.K. launches vaccination ad campaign to boost childhood immunizations

STAT

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

The ads, which tell parents to contact their general practitioners if they’ve missed getting their kids immunized, are designed to capture parents’ desires to keep kids safe. Read the rest…

Immunity

STAT+: Dreams of cancer vaccines are becoming more real. Here are 9 scientists making it happen

STAT

OCTOBER 29, 2024

But many other modes of immunotherapy for cancer were approved first — checkpoint blockade drugs like Keytruda and engineered immune cell therapies like Yescarta. Cancer vaccines may also be able to help train the immune system to recognize and kill cancers related to viruses like HPV.

Vaccines

Vaccines Immunity Immunization Drug Development

STAT+: Prometheus team launches new startup with $400 million to tackle immune-driven disorders

STAT

MARCH 21, 2024

This “summer of discovery,” as McKenna called it, brought him back to the immune system. McKenna discussed possibilities with his teenagers and Prometheus’ chief scientific officer.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Could long Covid’s signs of immune dysregulation in the blood lead to a diagnostic test?

STAT

JANUARY 18, 2024

New research published Thursday in Science has identified proteins present in the blood of people with long Covid that could point the way to a much-needed diagnostic test and possibly to future therapeutic targets.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Pandemic-related immunity gap in kids explains surge of respiratory infections in children in China, says WHO

STAT

NOVEMBER 24, 2023

The evidence presented to the WHO team pointed to what’s sometimes called an immunity gap that was created by the pandemic. But a rapidly organized meeting Thursday between the World Health Organization and health officials in China assuaged much of that concern.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

STAT+: AltruBio raises $225 million to develop ulcerative colitis drug and other immune checkpoint enhancers

STAT

MAY 21, 2024

Checkpoint inhibitors, drugs that unleash the immune system, have turned into blockbuster therapies that have transformed outcomes for some patients with deadly cancers.

Immunity

STAT+: Cancer therapy’s new ‘gold rush’: bispecific antibodies that hit key combination of targets

STAT

JANUARY 22, 2025

Immune checkpoint inhibitors, drugs that can help make the immune system recognize and destroy cancer more aggressively, are one of the most important medicines in cancer treatment today.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization Compounding Drug Development

STAT+: A biotech upstart takes on cancer by crowdsourcing the immune system’s natural killers

STAT

APRIL 11, 2023

No two people have quite the same immune system. And while that fact can make matching bone marrow and organ transplants torturously difficult, a Bay Area biotech believes it can harness immune diversity to treat a range of deadly cancers.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

FDA authorizes new drug to protect immune compromised from Covid-19

STAT

MARCH 22, 2024

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday authorized a new antibody to protect immunocompromised individuals against Covid-19. The drug, known as Pemgarda and marketed by the biotech Invivyd, is the first such drug to become available since the agency pulled AstraZeneca’s Evusheld off the market in January 2023.

Immunity

STAT+: Normunity launches with $65 million to unleash the immune system on tumors

STAT

OCTOBER 25, 2022

That’s the premise behind Normunity, which launched Tuesday with $65 million from investors to develop a suite of drugs that it dubs “immune normalizers” to help restore the natural ability of the immune system’s T cells to infiltrate and destroy tumors.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

STAT+: In small study, weight loss drug boosts immune cells that help fight cancer

STAT

MAY 10, 2023

Prior research has shown that people with obesity have deficiencies in their “natural killer” cells, or NK cells — immune cells that help in combating cancer. A new small study suggests they may also be useful in fighting cancer.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization Diabetes

Maternal Covid-19 vaccination offers infants immunity for up to 6 months

STAT

OCTOBER 23, 2023

The risks of severe neonatal morbidity, neonatal death, and admission to the neonatal intensive care unit were all significantly lower during the first month of birth in infants whose mothers were vaccinated against Covid-19, and protection against the virus continued for up to six months after birth, according to a new study published Monday in JAMA (..)

Vaccines

To protect chickens from bird flu, researchers try to CRISPR in immunity

STAT

OCTOBER 10, 2023

LONDON — In this case, it was neither the chicken nor the egg that came first. Rather, it started with some specially engineered cells in a lab. The chicken cells had had their genomes edited, not to correct a faulty mutation, but in an effort to blunt the bird flu virus.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

The biotech news stories we’re keeping an eye on

STAT

JANUARY 17, 2025

Today, we see insulin-producing cells survive in a human body without triggering an immune rejection, and have some big news from CMS. Hope those of you who were in San Francisco for J.P. Morgan are resting, recovering, and not coping with any quad-emic strains. Read the rest…

Immunity

Immunity Immunization Drug Pricing Drug Development

‘We’re absolutely making it too hard’: The complexity of adult immunization delivery hinders vaccine uptake

STAT

OCTOBER 25, 2023

Alison Buttenheim was floored by a sign she saw in her doctor’s office when she went to get the first jab of the two-dose shingles vaccine to protect her against painful flare-ups of varicella zoster. “Medicare patients cannot receive Tdap or zoster vaccines here. They need to obtain [them] at their pharmacy.

Vaccines

Immuneering takes aim at cancer’s ‘superhighway’

PharmaVoice

SEPTEMBER 11, 2023

After dropping its neuroscience program earlier this year, the clinical-stage oncology company is doubling down on a candidate targeting the MAPK pathway.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

STAT+: Pfizer and BioNTech effort to develop Covid-influenza combination vaccine sees setback

STAT

AUGUST 16, 2024

Pfizer and BioNTech said Friday that their combined mRNA vaccine candidate against influenza and Covid-19 showed a lower immune response against one type of influenza, influenza B, in a Phase 3 trial, a setback for the vaccine. ” Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Vaccines

NIH study of ME/CFS points to immune dysfunction and brain abnormalities at core of long-dismissed disease

STAT

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Alison Sbrana was in the belly of an opera when her life changed. Down in the pit, surrounded by fellow orchestra members, she’d been straining to play her flute for half the show. As performers overhead enveloped the audience in arias, Sbrana felt like the Hulk was pulling on the tendons in the right side of her neck.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Study reveals vitamin D-altered mouse gut bacteria provides better cancer immunity

Pharma Times

MAY 2, 2024

Bacteroides fragilis in the gut improves immunity and immunotherapy treatment responses

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Researchers identify genetic changes responsible for rare childhood immune disorders

Pharma Times

MAY 30, 2024

Affecting the immune system, various forms of SCID are estimated to affect one in 75,000 to 100,000 newborns

Immunity

Immunity Immunization Hospitals

New chronic Covid study offers insight into which immunocompromised patients are most at risk

STAT

JANUARY 24, 2024

This happens to people whose immune systems are compromised, whether through disease or treatment, leaving them vulnerable to infections that last weeks, months, or, in one known case, a year.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Alkermes looks to fill cancer treatment gaps with new immune pathways

PharmaVoice

JULY 14, 2022

The company’s chief medical officer discusses its lead candidate and how it fits into wider oncology trends.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Small study adds to growing hope CAR-T cell therapy could revolutionize autoimmune disease treatment

STAT

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

There’s symptom management, hopeful periods of remission often followed by relapses, but rarely a lasting fix for the way their immune system attacks healthy cells. If the immune system is an army, then those with conditions like lupus, multiple sclerosis, or rheumatoid arthritis are often fighting a never-ending war of friendly fire.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Gut bacteria could play role in kidney autoimmune disease, study shows

STAT

MARCH 27, 2024

New research shows that certain bacteria can alter antibodies so much that they’re unrecognizable to the body’s defenses — potentially leading to immune friendly fire. The bacteria, called Akkermansia muciniphila, can strip the sugar coating from IgA antibodies, immune proteins abundant in the gut.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Cell therapy fails to slow early type 1 diabetes, but safety is established

STAT

MAY 8, 2024

Tolerance is the holy grail in calming autoimmune disease, a truce in the immune system’s faulty battle against the body’s own fabric. In type 1 diabetes, immune fighters attack beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, the hormone that controls glucose levels in the blood.

Diabetes

Diabetes Immunity Immunization

A newly developed machine learning-based test could diagnose autoimmune diseases faster

STAT

FEBRUARY 20, 2025

It does so through your immune system, a vast army of cells that mobilizes to fight off Every time you get sick, your body keeps a record of it.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

Borrowing CAR-T tool from cancer therapy, lupus patients go into remission

STAT

SEPTEMBER 16, 2022

Rheumatology — the study of immune-system-driven diseases of the bones, joints, muscles, and in-betweens — has inherited plenty of hand-me-downs from cancer research. For example, there are ways of squelching an immune system in order to shrink certain kinds of cancerous tumors.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

STAT+: Chasing CAR-T, biotech finds its next gold rush in autoimmune disease

STAT

OCTOBER 14, 2024

Companies that are developing new medicines for autoimmune conditions, as well as other immune system disorders, have brought in more money and closed more deals so far this year than most other areas, including the cardiometabolic field, data from investment bank Oppenheimer show.

Immunity

Opinion: How climate change is driving a global epidemic of immune health problems, and how to stop it

STAT

APRIL 4, 2024

Many of the effects of climate change play out at a very large scale: Heatwaves that grip entire continents. Flooding that submerges vast swaths of island nations and continental coastal areas. Other effects are far less visible because they’re taking place inside people’s bodies. That doesn’t make them any less dangerous.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

STAT+: Supreme Court rejects Purdue bankruptcy plan

STAT

JUNE 27, 2024

Supreme Court rejected a controversial bankruptcy deal in which the owners of Purdue Pharma sought to contribute up to $6 billion in exchange for immunity from further lawsuits. The immunity had been a huge sticking point and prevented the settlement, which was first approved by a bankruptcy judge three years ago, from being finalized.

Immunity

Immunity Immunization

FDA approves Pfizer’s RSV vaccine designed to protect newborns by immunizing parent

STAT

AUGUST 21, 2023

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a Pfizer vaccine that aims to protect newborns against RSV by vaccinating pregnant people in the latter part of pregnancy. The vaccine, Abrysvo, has also been approved for use in adults 60 and older to protect them against respiratory syncytial virus. Read the rest…

Vaccines

STAT+: Biogen joins immunology wave with $1.15 billion acquisition

STAT

MAY 22, 2024

Biogen is joining the industry’s fervor over immune and inflammatory disease drug development with a new acquisition. HI-Bio, which is based in San Francisco, is developing therapies for immune-mediated diseases like primary membranous nephropathy and IgA nephropathy, both of which impact kidney function. The Cambridge, Mass.,

Immunity