Sirana Pharma – a company that concentrates on the development of innovative treatments for unmet medical needs in muscle and bone diseases – has announced a collaborative research agreement with pharma giant Pfizer. It has hoped that the link up will yield life-transforming treatment for a specific group of patients.

The partnership will investigate the potential identification and validation of a novel treatment concept for a rare and debilitating bone disease. It will initially involve utilising Sirana’s proprietary microRNA approach, which targets substantial regenerative recovery of diseased muscle and bone tissue.

“Combining Sirana’s novel miRNA-targeting approach, and the long-standing experience in musculoskeletal disorders and disease mechanisms of its founders, with the expertise and competencies of Pfizer will allow Sirana to expeditiously evaluate its drug candidates for the treatment of this rare disease and to identify potential candidates for further development,” commented Michael Kring, chief executive officer of Sirana Pharma.

“At Pfizer, we are committed to advancing promising, emerging research – both through our internal capabilities and through collaborations with companies like Sirana – with the goal of bringing potentially life-changing medicines to patients around the world,” said Seng Cheng, senior vice president at Pfizer Rare Disease.

Sirana has focused on the development of first-in-class molecules to treat both sarcopenia – age related muscle weakness – and osteogenesis imperfecta, an inherited brittle bone disease.

COVID-19 Beta-containing vaccine provides 75.1% efficacy in participants previously infected with coronavirus Sanofi and GSK have announced positive data from their vaccine trial which evaluated an adjuvanted Beta vaccine candidate. This included 75.1% efficacy in previously infected participants.

The duo’s vaccine is the first candidate to demonstrate efficacy in a placebo-controlled trial in an environment of high Omicron variant circulation. The vaccine candidate showed a favourable safety and tolerability profile throughout the study.

Earlier this month Sanofi reported positive data from two trials conducted with its new next-generation COVID-19 booster vaccine candidate modelled on the Beta variant antigen and including GSK’s pandemic adjuvant.

The data supporting this next-generation booster vaccine will be submitted to regulatory authorities and indicate the potential of Sanofi/GSK’s Beta-based booster to become a formidable response to public health needs.

Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president vaccines at Sanofi was confident that the vaccine would make a difference across the world: “Today’s results reinforce the strong potential for the Beta antigen to confer broad protection against multiple strains that cause COVID-19. With the immunogenicity data from our Beta-booster vaccine, they support our belief that a next-generation Beta booster vaccine could provide protection against variants like Omicron.”