A new analysis led by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and Imperial College London (ICL) has confirmed that a variant called M1UK played a key role in the global increase of group A streptococcus (STREP A) infections.

The research was supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NICE), the UKRI Medical Research Council and the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.

Affecting more than 3,000 people in England between September 2022 and May 2023, according to the UKHSA, Strep A is a common form of bacteria that, in rare cases, can cause invasive infections.

During this time, global health agencies recorded a surge in severe invasive Strep A infections following the lifting of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

M1 strains are known to cause invasive infections more than other types of Strep A and have been recently linked to the rise in the number of severe infections in Europe, Australia, North America and Japan.

Carried out with the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance, scientists looked into the genetics of M1UK, provided new insights into its first emergence and compared it to other strains.

The analysis revealed that genetic features of M1UK could more easily spread compared to other strains and have the potential to cause more severe disease despite reduced Strep A during the pandemic, leading to waning immunity in the population.

Oregon Therapeutics and Lantern Pharma have entered into a strategic artificial intelligence (AI)-driven collaboration to optimise the development of a protein disulphide isomerase (PDI) inhibitor drug candidate for a variety of novel and targeted cancer indications.

XCE853 is being developed by Oregon in various indications, including drug-resistant ovarian and pancreatic cancer, certain haematological cancers and several paediatric cancers, including central nervous system cancers.

Nearly 612,000 deaths are predicted to occur in the US in 2024 due to cancer and resistance to anti-cancer drugs will be responsible for 90% of those deaths.

Under the terms of the agreement, Lantern will receive equal intellectual property (IP) co-ownership and drug development rights in newly discovered biomarkers, novel indications and pharmacological use strategies for XCE853.

Meanwhile, Oregon is entitled to financial benefits resulting from the licensing of the background IP to Lantern.

Both companies are entitled to additional financial benefits that result from the licensing of any collaborative IP to a third party.

As part of the deal, Lantern will leverage its proprietary RADR AI platform to identify biomarkers and efficacy-associated signatures of XCE853 across solid tumours that can aid in precision development.

RADR has a growing library of over 60 million data points from many diverse types of biological measurements and oncology experiments, as well as over 200 machine learning algorithms focusing on issues central to real-world cancer drug development.