Pfizer
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The FDA granted Pfizer’s Trumenba, a vaccine for meningococcal B disease in children ages one to nine years, Breakthrough Therapy Designation and declined to approve its biosimilar of Roche’s Herceptin for breast cancer.
Shares of Ionis Pharmaceuticals are up more than 10 percent in premarket trading after Biogen handed over $1 billion to support a new 10-year collaboration agreement to develop novel antisense drug candidates for a broad range of neurological diseases.
Ahead of next Monday’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) committee review of Eli Lilly and Incyte’s baricitinib for rheumatoid arthritis, concerns over blood clots, may scuttle the drug’s chances.
Pfizer’s consumer health business has been spurned again. This time by mega-consumer goods company Proctor & Gamble. which opted today to acquire Germany-based Merck KGaA’s consumer health unit for $4.2 billion.
Novartis announced that John Tsai, formerly of Amgen, is joining the company as Head of Global Drug Development and chief medical officer.
General Electric is diving deeper into the world of biotechnology. The conglomeration is launching prefabricated manufacturing units to product virus-based gene and cell therapies, Reuters reported this morning.
Sanofi has agreed to sell its generics division, Zentiva, to Advent International. The deal is expected to wrap by the end of this year.
There has been speculation for several years whether Pfizer Inc. would consider buying Bristol-Myers Squibb. That appears to have been laid to rest by comments made by Pfizer’s chief executive officer, Ian Read.
Pfizer Inc. has dosed its first patient in a Phase Ib clinical trial of PF-06939926 for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). At the moment, the only approved drug is Sarepta Therapeutics’ Exondys 51 (eteplirsen).
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