Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine; AcelRx buys TetraPhase; Breakthrough designation to Baricitinib

Moderna announces dozing of first patient with its mRNA1273 vaccine

The pharmaceutical company, Moderna, has been developing a vaccine for the treatment of COVID-19. The vaccine is an mRNA-1273 is developed by scientist at NAID, in collaboration with Moderna, and the manufacturing of the vaccine for Phase I clinical trial has been supported by Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).

The company has announced that the first patient has been dozed with the vaccine to protect against COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV-2 virus. The Phase I study is being conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under its own Investigational New Drug (IND) application and plans to for the Phase II trials.

AcelRx Pharmaceuticals is purchasing TetraPhase Pharmaceuticals for USD 14.4 Million

Headquartered in Redwood City, California, AcelRx, is acquiring Tetraphase at an exchange ratio of 0.6303 shares of AcelRx, for each share of Tetraphase. Moreover, the deal also involves a contingent value right (CVR) based on Xerava (eravacycline for injection) hitting a specific net sales figure beginning in 2021.

The companies are bound with a co-promotion agreement for the commercialization of Xerava for complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI) and Dsuvia for acute pain in medically supervised settings.

The US FDA grants Breakthrough designation to baricitinib

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Eli Lilly’s baricitinib Breakthrough Therapy designation for treating alopecia areata (AA).

 AA – an autoimmune disease – results in hair loss on the scalp, face and other areas of the body. Once-daily oral JAK inhibitor- Baricitinib, sold under the brand name – Olumiant, is approved for treating severely active rheumatoid arthritis in adults who have one or more TNF – tumor necrosis factor.