At this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos, the topic of the COVID-19 pandemic and its destructive impact was central to many of the discussions that took place. Among them, was the issue of vaccine hesitancy around the world, especially in underdeveloped nations such as those in Africa. According to Africa CDC, as of September 2022, Africa, the second most-populated continent, has only vaccinated 21% of its people; an inadequate number In comparison to other populated countries such as India
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Life Sciences | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
When Innovation Isn’t Enough: Pharma’s Next Frontier
I met Mark Cuban once. Our conversation didn’t last very long.
It was at a medical conference a few years ago. Cuban felt like a great guy to approach with an idea for a healthcare startup. We were both investors in an automation software startup called Zoba, and I of course knew him from his role on the popular entrepreneurial reality TV series Shark Tank.
A few seconds into our conversation, Cuban paused. “Healthcare is hard,” he sighed. That was his way of politely telling me: for that
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AI/ML Used for Clinical Trial-Site Identification Simultaneously Improves Enrollment Rates and Diversity
Ethnic and racial minorities are commonly underrepresented in clinical trials. This problem is so severe that in April, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded upon existing guidance to further emphasize recommendations to sponsors developing treatments to increase enrollment from underrepresented populations in the U.S., including African-American, Hispanic, Asian and other persons of color, in clinical trials. In the updated guidance, the FDA provided details on what sponsors
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Vevo Launches with $12M to Scale Vivo Data Generation to Discover Better Drugs
What You Should Know:
- Vevo Therapeutics, an SF-based biotechnology company, launched today with a $12M seed round led by General Catalyst and Wing Venture Capital using its Mosaic in vivo drug discovery platform and next-generation AI models to uncover better drugs for more patients.
- Vevo is the first platform to make in vivo data generation scalable with single-cell precision + will create the world’s largest atlas of how drugs interact with patient cells. In a single in vivo
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Aetion, FDA to Evaluate Real-World Data Standardization for COVID-19
What You Should Know:
- Aetion, a provider of real-world evidence (RWE) technology and analytics, today announced that the FDA has extended Aetion’s contract to evaluate real-world data (RWD) involving COVID-19 medical countermeasures.
- Aetion will be expanding its work to evaluate data standardization in the context of COVID-19. Aetion has been collaborating with FDA since May 2020, providing validated software platform capabilities and RWD/E expertise to contribute to rapid evidence
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How Virtual-First Clinical Trials Scale Access for Participants
Making clinical trials equitable is one of the biggest challenges we face as an industry. We see this time and again, with one of the latest examples coming in the form of a study published in JAMA Network Open that found substantial underrepresentation of Black patients enrolled in pivotal trials for CAR-T therapy.
Women are another demographic negatively affected by inequality in clinical research. Earlier this month [May 2022] the American Heart Association issued a
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Specialty Pharma’s Next Big Opportunity: It’s Time for Patient Access to Adopt an Open Protocol
In January 2020, the financial conglomerate Visa announced it was acquiring a relatively unknown startup, Plaid, for $5.3 billion. Corporate acquisitions like these are not uncommon, but someone at the United States Department of Justice took notice of this announcement. Visa had established a stranglehold on financial transactions. The Justice Department moved to stop the acquisition on grounds that Plaid posed “a threat to this monopoly: it has been developing an innovative
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Nectin Therapeutics Raises $25M for Immuno-Oncology Therapies
What You Should Know:
- Nectin Therapeutics Ltd., (Nectin) a biotechnology company developing novel targeted immunotherapies to address resistance to approved immune-oncology treatments, announced it has extended its Series A financing to over $25 million. IBF and Peregrine Ventures led the round, with participation from aMoon Fund and other existing investors.
- The funding will be used to support the ongoing clinical evaluation of NTX1088, and to further advance the company’s pipeline of
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How AI-Based Drug Repurposing Could Help Prevent Repetitive Behavior Disorders
Repetitive behavioral disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Tic Disorder and Tourette Syndrome have been challenging to treat because they involve considerable complexity. For example, the symptoms of one disorder can vary among individuals as does the coexistence or non-existence of other behavior disorders such as anxiety and depression. Further, the treatment of OCD, Tic Disorder and Tourette Syndrome varies depending on
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Rgenta Therapeutics Raises $52M for Integrative RNA-Targeting Discovery Platform
What You Should Know:
- Rgenta Therapeutics Inc. raises a $52M Series A round led by AZ-CICC Healthcare Investment Fund with participation from all existing investors and new investors including Korean Investment Partners, Delos Capital.
- Rgenta Therapeutics is focusing on developing RNA-targeting medicines for historically undruggable disease targets.
Targeting the “Undruggables”
Only a quarter of the proteins implicated in human diseases are currently druggable by traditional
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