Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica has announced that it signed a sponsored research agreement with Monash University’s Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) for development of an inhaled dry powder oxytocin for the prevention and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage. No financial details were included in the announcement.
According to Janssen, the new agreement “builds on an existing collaboration between MIPS and GSK” that was announced in 2014. In March 2017, Monash announced positive Phase 1 results from a study of its inhaled oxytocin in healthy volunteers.
Johnson & Johnson Global Public Health Global Head Jaak Peeters commented, “When you consider the lifetime risk of dying for a woman in child birth is 23 times higher in resource-limited settings than anywhere else you must act if you have the scientific capabilities to potentially help overcome that inequity. We hope to address this significant unmet need by helping accelerate the development of what would be a truly life-saving innovation and give women and their families everywhere the same chance at life.”
Monash University Professor Michelle McIntosh said, “This is an exciting opportunity to expand this collaboration between industry and academia to develop an important healthcare innovation that aims to address a critical unmet medical need. There is a massive ripple effect when a mother dies – it’s a very significant burden for these families and communities, and we are committed to bringing the gold-standard care to all mothers.”
McIntosh spoke about the project in a 2018 video:
Read the Johnson & Johnson press release.
