The German major will collaborate with the US biotech to develop CRISPR gene-editing therapies, solidifying its interest in next-generation therapeutics.

Heading into the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, pharmas have been focusing on discovery alliances. J&J’s deals look into novel tissue-targeted drugs, ionic liquid delivery technology and cancer vaccine R&D. Lilly teams with Entos on novel methods for delivering neurology drugs.

Lack of reference standards inhibits ability to make comparisons between products or set caps for total vector genome dose or total capsid dose, advisory committee says; panelists suggest other approaches to prevent and mitigate toxicities, including running longer-term animal studies and investigating the efficacy of immunosuppression prophylaxis and treatment strategies.

Alexion/AstraZeneca has announced positive top-line results from the Phase III study of ALXN1840 in patients with the rare genetic disorder, Wilson disease, including in patients already on standard-of-care therapies. The compound is ahead of two candidate gene therapies from other companies at early-stage clinical development.