Cancer

FDA
Since its inception in 1992, the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway has helped shepherd nearly 300 new drugs to the market. However, recent years have seen a number of high-profile market withdrawals and failed confirmatory trials.
With the regulatory approval for advanced breast cancer, Roche’s inavolisib is a potential challenger to Novartis’ PI3K inhibitor Piqray, which last year generated $505 million in revenue.
The overall survival data from the late-stage trial will help Pfizer in its bid to expand the label for Talzenna and Xtandi, potentially covering all patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer regardless of biomarker status.
The pediatric patients, with a rare neurodegenerative disease, were treated with bluebird bio’s Skysona to slow the progression of neurologic dysfunction. Six patients developed myelodysplastic syndrome and one patient developed acute myeloid leukemia.
After several high-profile failures, including BMS’ $1.5B breakup with Agenus, anti-TIGIT therapies are generating cautious optimism.
Opdivo’s approval for patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer comes as the regulator recently raised concerns of overtreatment with this type of therapeutic regimen with platinum-doublet chemotherapy.
M&A
The acquisition was featured Monday in Roche’s Pharma Day presentation, which also included projections of more than $3 billion in annual sales from three early-stage obesity and diabetes drugs.
Six months after treatment with the radiopharmaceutical therapy, 77.8% of patients with meningioma were alive and had not experienced further disease progression, beating the 26% benchmark established in earlier studies.
Johnson & Johnson linked Carvykti to a 45% reduction in risk of death and Darzalex to a 61% improvement in minimal residual disease-negativity, boosting the prospects of two key growth drivers for the company.
One upcoming decision—on a perioperative PD-1 regimen for lung cancer—comes as the FDA considers an overhaul of trial designs in this treatment setting.
PRESS RELEASES