Casebia Therapeutics, the joint venture founded by Bayer and CRISPR Therapeutics, started its operations in Cambridge, MA, U.S. In December, 2015 Bayer and CRISPR Therapeutics agreed to create a joint venture (JV) to discover, develop and commercialize new breakthrough therapeutics to cure blood disorders, blindness, and congenital heart disease.

Janssen Research & Development, LLC, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a Breakthrough Therapy Designation for esketamine, an investigational antidepressant medication, for the indication of major depressive disorder with imminent risk for suicide.

Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) and Advaxis, Inc. (NASDAQ:ADXS) announced a global agreement for the development and commercialization of Advaxis' ADXS-NEO, a novel, preclinical investigational cancer immunotherapy treatment that is designed to activate a patient's immune system to respond against the unique mutations, or neoepitopes, contained in and identified from each individual patient's tumor.

Today Novartis announced that six scientists will receive the 2016 Novartis Prizes for Immunology at the upcoming 16th International Congress of Immunology (ICI) in Melbourne, Australia on Aug 22, 2016. The Novartis Prizes for Immunology are awarded every three years for breakthrough contributions to the fields of basic and clinical immunology.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) announced the publication of a new post-hoc analysis of data from three studies of VYNDAQEL in patients with mild transthyretin familial amyloid polyneuropathy (TTR-FAP). The analysis, which included patients with the Val30Met mutation treated over varying periods of up to 5.5 years, showed

Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPG), continuing on Baxalta's long-standing commitment to the bleeding disorder community, today announced the U.S. launch of VONVENDI [von Willebrand factor (Recombinant)], the only recombinant treatment for adults living with von Willebrand disease (VWD).

GSK (LSE/NYSE: GSK) has announced an agreement with Verily Life Sciences LLC (formerly Google Life Sciences), an Alphabet company, to form Galvani Bioelectronics to enable the research, development and commercialisation of bioelectronic medicines. GSK will hold a 55% equity interest in the new jointly owned company and Verily will hold 45%.