Novo Nordisk today announced a new global initiative to prevent obesity in children. The Childhood Obesity Prevention Initiative aims to accelerate the prevention of childhood obesity in disadvantaged urban communities globally. Together with a coalition of partners such as city governments, academic institutions and non-profit organisations, the initiative will support six cities in designing, implementing and evaluating tailored solutions focused on physical activity and healthy eating.

AstraZeneca's supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for Calquence (acalabrutinib) has been accepted and granted Priority Review in the US for the treatment of adult patients with previously untreated mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) grants Priority Review to applications for medicines that, if approved, would offer significant improvements over available options by demonstrating safety or efficacy improvements, preventing serious conditions or enhancing patient compliance.

Bayer AG and BlueRock Therapeutics LP, a clinical stage cell therapy company and wholly owned independently operated subsidiary of Bayer AG announced positive 24-month data from exPDite, a Phase 1 clinical trial of bemdaneprocel, an investigational cell therapy for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

Bemdaneprocel is the most clinically advanced investigational cell therapy in the U.S. for treating patients living with Parkinson's disease.

Bayer announced today the inauguration of its new life science incubator, Bayer Co.Lab Shanghai, in the Shanghai Innovation (SH-INNO) Park at the heart of China's largest biopharma cluster, Zhangjiang, Shanghai. Bayer Co.Lab is part of the global network of life science incubators situated in key innovation hubs, including Cambridge (USA), Kobe (Japan), and Berlin (Germany). The establishment of Bayer Co.Lab Shanghai represents a major milestone in Bayer's external innovation strategy, aimed at fostering open collaboration within the biotechnology ecosystem.

Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced that the United States Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) has approved OCREVUS ZUNOVO™ (ocrelizumab & hyaluronidase-ocsq) for the treatment of relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS) and primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS). OCREVUS ZUNOVO is the first and only twice-a-year, healthcare professional (HCP)-administered approximately 10-minute subcutaneous (SC) injection approved for both these forms of multiple sclerosis, giving people living with MS more treatment options.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) continues to showcase potential practice-changing research and next-generation candidates across its robust Oncology portfolio at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024, being held September 13-17 in Barcelona. Data from more than 50 company-sponsored, investigator-sponsored and collaborative research abstracts, including more than 10 oral and mini-oral presentations, will be presented across the company's tumor areas and core scientific modalities, as well as a potential treatment for a cancer-related condition.

Bayer and NextRNA Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on developing transformative medicines to address long non-coding RNA (lncRNA)-driven diseases, have entered into a collaboration and license agreement to develop small molecule therapeutics targeting lncRNAs in oncology. lncRNAs represent a vast class of therapeutic targets that recruit RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) to drive pathological processes across diseases. Disrupting lncRNA-RBP interactions with small molecules represents an innovative approach to develop a new class of therapeutic agents.