Roche

Biopharma companies strengthen their senior leadership teams and boards of directors with this week’s appointments.

Sandra Horning, Roche’s chief medical officer and head of global product development, will retire from the company at the end of the year, leaving some big shoes to fill.

Although some of the top-selling drugs in the world are facing patent cliffs between now and then, many of them are still projected to continue being big sellers between now and 2024.

The FDA approved Rozlytrek for the treatment of adults with ROS1-positive, metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. Also, Rozlytrek secured accelerated approval for the treatment of solid tumors that have a neurotrophic tyrosine receptor kinase (NTRK) gene fusion without a known acquired resistance mutation, are metastatic or where surgical resection is likely to result in severe morbidity, and have progressed following treatment or have no satisfactory alternative therapy.

Last week was a particularly busy week for biopharma companies to release information about ongoing clinical trials. Here’s a look.

Roche announced interim results from its Phase III IMvigor130 clinical trial, indicating it met its co-primary endpoint of progression-free survival. The trial evaluated the combination of Tecentriq and platinum-based chemotherapy in previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma compared to chemotherapy alone.

“In the first half of the year, we achieved very strong results, driven by high demand for our new medicines,” stated Severin Schwan, Roche’s chief executive officer.

Sanofi will be responsible for leading the clinical program and funding all studies needed to support the over-the-counter switch in the United States and will also be responsible for the regulatory submissions.

In its third installment of the Good Pharma Scorecard, Roche and Novo Nordisk scored perfect marks in overall trial transparency, while Johnson & Johnson slipped from the high spot on the previous ranking.