Day: July 28, 2022

Photo by Suzi Pratt

COUPEVILLE, Wash., July 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Whidbey and Camano Islands Tourism is undergoing strategic planning in partnership with the Transformational Travel Council (TTC) in a bold step to adapt to a forever-changed travel industry, and to lay the groundwork for a future-fit destination. An early adopter of the TTC’s Regenerative Places Program, the year-long process cultivates shared values and vision, builds stakeholder capacity, and facilitates the co-creation of a Regenerative Action Plan. This process is designed to develop the self-regulation of the islands’ tourism systems, and ultimately plant the seeds for a tourism industry that improves the lives of residents, enriches the visitor experience, and benefits the natural environment of the islands.

DURHAM, N.C., July 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Researchers from the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) presented updated results from the HPTN 084 long-acting cabotegravir (CAB) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) study at the AIDS 2022 conference in Montreal. New findings show reductions in HIV incidence were sustained in the 12 months following trial unblinding (November 5, 2020, through November 5, 2021).

“These results are encouraging as CAB efficacy was sustained during the 12 months following unblinding, confirming a high level of protection against HIV acquisition among study participants assigned female at birth,” said Dr. Sinead Delany-Moretlwe, HPTN 084 protocol chair, director of research at Wits RHI, and research professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

HPTN 084 is an ongoing Phase 3 randomized, controlled trial that previously demonstrated the superiority of ViiV Healthcare’s long-acting cabotegravir compared to daily oral tenofovir/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) for HIV prevention in individuals assigned female at birth. The blinded portion of the trial was stopped at a planned interim review in November 2020 due to evidence of superior efficacy when compared to daily oral TDF/FTC. Participants were subsequently unblinded and continued their original randomized study regimen pending a protocol amendment to offer open-label CAB.

“HIV infection continues to threaten the health of women worldwide,” said Dr. Myron Cohen, HPTN co-principal investigator, and director of the Institute for Global Health at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “Empowering women with safe and effective PrEP options is critical to reducing HIV as a global health threat.”

HPTN 084 enrolled 3,223 cisgender women at research sites in Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Twenty-three incident infections (3 CAB, 20 TDF/FTC) were detected in the 12-month unblinded period. Of these, two (1 CAB, 1 TDF/FTC) were determined to have occurred during the blinded phase. Only one of the CAB cases (blinded phase case) had ever received an injection. An additional 83 confirmed pregnancies (43 CAB, 40 TDF/FTC) occurred in the unblinded period. No congenital anomalies were reported.

“The additional pregnancy incidence data highlight the importance of establishing the safety and pharmacology of CAB among pregnant individuals,” said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, HPTN co-principal investigator, director of ICAP, and professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University in New York.

HPTN 084 was co-funded by NIAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and ViiV Healthcare. Study product was provided by ViiV Healthcare and Gilead Sciences, Inc. Three other NIH institutes also collaborated on HPTN 084: the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

About HPTN

The HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) is a worldwide collaborative clinical trials network that brings together investigators, ethicists, community members, and other partners to develop and test the safety and efficacy of interventions designed to prevent the acquisition and transmission of HIV. The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, Office of The Director, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, all part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, co-fund the HPTN. The HPTN has collaborated with more than 85 clinical research sites in 19 countries to evaluate new HIV prevention interventions and strategies in populations with a disproportionate HIV burden. The HPTN research agenda – more than 50 trials ongoing or completed with over 161,000 participants enrolled and evaluated – is focused primarily on discovering new HIV prevention tools and evaluating integrated strategies, including biomedical interventions combined with behavioral risk reduction interventions and structural interventions. For more information, visit hptn.org.

Eric Miller
HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN)
9193846465
emiller@fhi360.org

Ferrer wants to drive a new way of doing business and being in the world, because they believe that their activity as a company has to create more social and environmental value than the one it consumes

Ferrer for good

Ferrer for good

BARCELONA, Spain, July 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — In 2021 the pharmaceutical company Ferrer invested 61.4% of its net profits in social and environmental causes, as part of its purpose to make a positive impact in society. As the company’s Sustainability Report states, Ferrer reinvested the major part of its profits in several projects aimed at fostering equal opportunities for people in vulnerable situations, as well as projects aimed at protecting the planet. In this way, Ferrer materialized its purpose to make a positive impact. And the number of net profits invested represent a 53.2% rise in comparison to 2020.

Among the main projects in which Ferrer invested its profits in 2021, it is worth highlighting the one million healthy menus supplied in the Barcelona Metropolitan Area to people in an extreme situation of vulnerability. These meals, elaborated with food grown in biodynamic urban social gardens and with a permaculture regime, want to promote a green, sustainable and agroecological city model. The company also supports boys and girls at risk of social exclusion through music education programs. These are aimed at preventing school failure and enhance their educational, cultural, and emotional development.

As Mario Rovirosa, Ferrer’s CEO explained, the company has set its profit margin “in less than a half compared to the other companies in the sector”. The purpose is to “reinvest in initiatives with a social and environmental impact to create a fairer and more egalitarian society.” Likewise, Rovirosa asserted that the company has been working for years on its transformation towards being a “positive impact organization.” “We know we still have a long way to go, but we want to be promoters of a new way of doing business and being in the world because we believe that our activity as a pharmaceutical company must create more social and environmental value than it consumes”, Rovirosa stated.

In this way, all Ferrer’s strategy is related to the people and the development of their talent, the protection of the planet and the battle to achieve a fairer and more egalitarian society.

As a result of the work completed in 2021, Ferrer also became in early 2022 the first Spanish pharmaceutical laboratory to enter the B Corp community, the companies’ association aimed at building a more inclusive and sustainable economy. In the certification process carried out by B Lab Spain, Ferrer was highly valued for its strategy to develop innovative therapeutic solutions capable of transforming the lives of patients that suffer serious and debilitating diseases. Also, they recognized the company’s ability to operate with the highest standards of quality and safety, transparency, ethics, and honesty.

Commitment to talent and a fairer and more liveable world 

The 2021 Ferrer Sustainability Report’s data also reflects the company’s commitment, through its Great People axis, to a culture focused on people, based on trust and responsibility. In this sense, the company was recognized in Spain, Mexico, and Portugal as an excellent place to work (Great Place to Work®). This proved their ability to attract and retain the best professionals, with almost 96% of its workforce on indefinite contracts at the end of 2021, and 103,139 cumulative hours of training for their teams.

“Ferrer’s people are the main activists of our purpose. Each one of us, in our day-to-day decisions, contributes to the creation of our culture. A culture that has to do with how we lead, how we communicate, and how we organize ourselves, but that also involves a compromise with a more sustainable world. That is because, as a company, we want to contribute to the environmental preservation of our planet and the equality of opportunities. Moreover, we want to make Ferrer not only a great company to work for, but also a company with a positive impact and, therefore, focused on the benefit for all our stakeholders,” highlighted Bea Vila, Chief People & Sustainability Officer of Ferrer.

The people at Ferrer were also a driving force behind the Social Justice axis, through which the company intends to create a fairer and more equitable society. Therefore, the company mobilized 420 volunteers during the Days for Good, dedicating more than 1,300 hours to social and environmental projects. Within the same axis oriented towards social justice, the company itself promotes the defense of human rights to prevent and guarantee non-discrimination, health, and freedom of association. Furthermore, they want to achieve decent working conditions among its people and contribute to correct social inequality.

Through the actions for the environmental preservation of the planet that are part of the  Liveable Planet axis, Ferrer achieved a reduction of its global carbon footprint of 18.9% in 2021. This way, they approached the objective of having reduced it by 25% by 2030. To this extent, the company works with a 100% electricity coming from renewable sources, avoiding the emission of 7,500 tons of CO2 each year. Besides, the company also achieved to recover 76.5% of its waste globally, thanks to actions such as treatment, recycling, recovery, and composting, among others.

In the packaging field, Ferrer reaffirmed its commitment to the circular economy with the launch of the Packaging for good program, which includes the promotion of eco-design and the recovery of materials. The program works in line with the company’s vision of reducing by 25% the carbon footprint of its packaging in 2030 through the eco-design of 50% of its products. In addition, in June 2021 Ferrer started the Ecoins project in Costa Rica, a reverse logistics project that allowed the recovery of more than 4,500 tons of materials at more than 450 recollection points. With this project, Ferrer positioned itself as the first pharmacist to assume the recovery of waste medicines and fulfill the indications of the Costa Rican law regarding the Extended Responsibility of the Producer.

Moreover, to achieve Ferrer’s goal of becoming a carbon-positive company, they have joined to the Business Ambition 1’5°C, promoted by the United Nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the company participated as well in the Conference on Climate Change (COP26) to align its commitment with the recommendations and experiences of the scientific community.

Contact information:

gortizdez@ferrer.com
Tel.: +34 936 003 779

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The CDMO’s Milan facility provides lentiviral vector and autologous CD34+ cell-based drug products for clinical testing

SEATTLE, MILAN, July 28, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — AGC Biologics, a leading global Biopharmaceutical Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), today announced a new partnership with Altheia Science, a gene therapy company pioneering cell and gene therapy strategies to treat autoimmune diseases and cancer. Through this partnership, Altheia Science will advance its development of autoimmunity treatments, focused on modulating PD-L1 expression in patients’ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, into clinical testing.

AGC Biologics is performing drug product development at its Milan facility using lentiviral vector (LVV) and autologous CD34+ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell systems. The cells will be transduced using a highly efficient ex vivo lentiviral material to encode the human PD-L1 DNA.

“The AGC Biologics Milan site has a long-standing expertise in successfully developing stem cell-based gene therapies, from clinical testing up to commercialization,” said Paolo Rizzardi, Chief Executive Officer of Altheia Science. “We believe this partnership is key in supporting our gene therapy programs and  making these innovative therapies available to patients.”

The AGC Biologics Milan facility has one of the strongest development and manufacturing track records in the global cell and gene industry, working with virtually any cell type and lentiviral, retroviral and adeno‐associated viral vectors. The site has 25 years of expertise, including manufacturing three commercial products, and teams of scientists with significant development and regulatory experience. The site was the first ex-vivo cell and gene therapy site approved in Europe for GMP manufacturing of clinical and commercial supplies.

“We are pleased Altheia Science placed their trust in our cell therapy and viral vector services, and our Milan site, at this important stage in their product’s lifecycle,” notes JB Agnus, Chief Business Officer of AGC Biologics. “Our global Cell Therapy and Viral Vector services are powerful tools for partners creating life-changing treatments for patients. We pride ourselves on our ability to collaborate with cell and gene developers and work within their unique specifications and requirements.”

AGC Biologics’ cell therapy services and viral vector capabilities leverage the latest technology and processes, including proprietary platforms developed to address the evolving advanced therapies industry. To learn more about the company and its complete list of biologics and cell and gene services, visit www.agcbio.com.

About Altheia Science  

Altheia Science has been founded by Prof. Alessandra Biffi, MD, and Prof. Paolo Fiorina, MD, Ph.D., together with the investment company AurorA-TT (www.aurora-tt.com). Altheia Science develops pioneering cell & gene therapy strategies to treat autoimmune diseases and cancer.  To learn more, visit www.altheiascience.com.

About AGC Biologics  
AGC Biologics is a leading global biopharmaceutical Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) with a strong commitment to delivering the highest standard of service as we work side-by-side with our clients and partners every step of the way. We provide world-class development and manufacture of mammalian and microbial-based therapeutic proteins, plasmid DNA (pDNA), messenger RNA (mRNA), viral vectors, and genetically engineered cells. Our global network spans the U.S., Europe, and Asia, with cGMP-compliant facilities in Seattle, Washington; Boulder and Longmont, Colorado; Copenhagen, Denmark; Heidelberg, Germany; Milan, Italy; and Chiba, Japan and we currently employ more than 2,500 employees worldwide. Our commitment to continuous innovation fosters the technical creativity to solve our clients’ most complex challenges, including specialization in fast-track projects and rare diseases. To learn more, visit www.agcbio.com.

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Nick McDonald
AGC Biologics
4254193555
nmcdonald@agc.com