Drug Development

By votes of 11-0 and 8-3, respectively, an FDA advisory committee Friday deemed the risks of early death for both Johnson & Johnson’s Carvykti and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Abecma acceptable.
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Through substantial leadership turnover and workforce cuts, the FDA has continued to support the advanced therapy sector, actively working to remove obstacles to innovation.
With immunology and inflammation blockbusters like AbbVie’s Skyrizi and Rinvoq reeling in nearly $7 billion combined in the third quarter, the pipeline-in-a-product strategy has never been more attractive.
The cholesterol-lowering drug is part of a suite of medicines that also includes MariTide and that Amgen Chief Medical Officer Paul Burton hopes will make the company the “undisputed leader in the management of cardiometabolic risk for patients” by 2030.
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The company said Thursday it has closed $200 million in Series B financing—on top of last year’s $200 million Series A haul—to help initiate a registrational Phase II study for its lead candidate UPB-101.
Astellas Pharma will license and further develop a gene therapy from Kate Therapeutics aimed at addressing XLMTM amid safety concerns about its own experimental XLMTM treatment.
In a 6-0 vote, the FDA’s advisory committee Friday affirmed that trial data confirmed the clinical benefit of Eisai and Biogen’s Leqembi (lecanemab) for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
In a late-stage study of non-ambulatory patients with DMD on background corticosteroids, pamrevlumab failed to meet the primary endpoint for upper limb performance.
Promosome filed lawsuits Tuesday against Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech, alleging that the vaccine developers used patent-protected mRNA technology without a license.
While approved in non-small cell lung cancer, Keytruda failed to provide benefit for the TKI-resistant, EGFR-mutant subtype of the disease.
Biogen, and partner Denali, are discontinuing the Phase III LIGHTHOUSE study of BIIB122 in Parkinson’s disease due to the trial’s long timeline and complexity.
Neurologist David Weisman, with financial ties to the companies, was removed from the FDA’s upcoming advisory committee meeting slated to consider Leqembi’s traditional approval.
The combination therapy was added to standard chemotherapy and lowered the risk of progression or death by 37% in newly diagnosed patients with advanced ovarian cancer without BRCA mutations.
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis patients treated with the company’s efruxifermin saw significant improvements in liver fat and biomarkers of liver damage, fibrosis and cardiometabolic health.