💊 Africa Epidemics Fund in the making; Clinical trial capacity for West Africa; Boehringer collab pulls Phenomic AI into the spotlight

#483 | The fight for healthy ageing continues; Africa’s resilience agenda takes shape; Lifesaving products are also life-harming

Hello, and welcome back to The Kable, dear reader. Ahead of his trip to Dubai for COP28, the Director-General of the Africa CDC, Dr Jean Kaseya, has highlighted that climate change is the biggest threat to human health in Africa and the rest of the world. Mitigating this threat is top of his agenda.

In Ghana, data from the Registered Nurses and Midwives Association shows that more than 4,000 nurses and midwives have left the country in the past year. There are fears that such outward migration could throw the health sector into a crisis.

In Zimbabwe, cholera is still doing what cholera does. In response, the government has set up at least 46 cholera treatment camps as well as oral rehydration points. Authorities will also set up hand washing stations and sanitation devices in public places. 300 healthcare personnel, at the very least, will be trained and deployed to lead door-to-door educational campaigns. Additionally, the government will be monitoring water quality, supervising burials, and restricting gatherings in affected areas.

Considering the recent spike in respiratory illnesses in China, Taiwan’s health ministry has urged the elderly, the very young, and individuals with poor immunity to avoid travel to mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Speaking of China, the China-based biopharma company Akeso has kicked off construction of the Akeso Global R&D Centre. Located in Shanghai, the project has a planned investment of RMB 850 million. The Centre will leverage Akeso’s drug innovation and development system to track and lead the latest global research trends, with a focus on gene therapies, cell therapies, neurological diseases, and anti-ageing. It will establish a leading pipeline for ongoing research and platforms and teams dedicated to tumour microenvironment big data analysis and translational research. Akeso is already actively developing over 30 innovative assets across cancer, autoimmune disease, inflammation, metabolic disease, and beyond.

Canadian company Phenomic AI is entering the spotlight with a new collab with Boehringer Ingelheim. With $9 million upfront and over $500 million more at stake, the partners will work on target identification. These targets will focus on the tumour stroma, which is a complex structure made up of connective tissue which serves cancer cells as a shield against the immune system and a bridge to other parts of the body. The partners are optimistic that directly drugging sites in the stroma could open up a whole new class of oncology therapies.

Since people don’t appear to enjoy ageing very much, Hurdle, a pioneer in diagnostic testing, and the consumer health division of Bayer have launched a strategic partnership. The goal? To progress consumer innovations that’ll help people age more healthily. As part of the deal, Bayer will be selling Hurdle’s saliva-based Chronomics Biological Age Test via D2C e-commerce.

As part of a “refreshed business strategy”, Gilead Sciences’ Kite Pharma cell therapy unit will lay off about 7% of its workforce. About 90 roles will be created to better align with the organisation’s focus, so the net impact of layoffs will be about 5%. Either way, not so refreshing for the people getting laid off.

Unfortunately, there’s hardly a day with no discouraging news about pharma quality from a particular country. Intas Pharmaceuticals has received another warning letter subsequent to a US FDA inspection of its facility in Gujarat, India in May. The concerns include manipulated records and contamination issues. After the FDA deemed Intas’ response to its Form 483 inadequate, the agency has placed Intas on an import alert.

Yesterday, we told you about the FDA investigating cases of secondary blood cancer in patients who received CAR-T therapies. Clinicians are stressing that the risk factor is very small for a drug class that is otherwise very effective.

And finally, news of more money being pumped into the fight against ageing and related diseases and disabilities. The XPRIZE Foundation has announced $101 million in prizes for researchers who can restore the function of an elderly person’s muscle, cognition, and immune system by at least 10 years. The competition is sponsored primarily by the founder of Lululemon Athletica and by the Hevolution Foundation, a Saudi Arabia government-funded non-profit which supports healthspan research.