FDA
Imfinzi’s perioperative approval comes after both the FDA’s staffers and a panel of external experts expressed concerns about overtreatment when using the PD-L1 blocker both before and after surgery.
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New FDA expert panels, such as recent meetings on SSRI use during pregnancy and on hormone replacement therapy during menopause, are drawing criticism for being one-sided. One leader says such panels are designed to reach a specific conclusion.
Amid an unprecedented turnover in leadership at the FDA and mass layoffs of staff, communication has crumbled and uncertainty runs rampant, leaving small and medium biopharma companies without a clear path forward for their therapies.
Aside from the rare disease market, Novo Nordisk also scored a key regulatory win last month for its blockbuster GLP-1 drug Wegovy, which can now be used to treat patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.
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This week, we discuss the two major FDA approvals for sickle cell from Vertex/CRISPR and bluebird bio; Axcella and the future of long-covid treatments, Vanda’s $100m purchase and AI regulatory developments in Europe.
Friday’s FDA approval of Vertex-CRISPR’s Casgevy and bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia has immediately revealed startling differences between these two gene therapies: price and a black-box warning.
Along with CRISPR/Cas9-based Casgevy—developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics—the regulator on Friday approved bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia, a second gene therapy for sickle cell disease.
The Swiss pharma’s Fabhalta, a Factor B inhibitor, is the first FDA-approved oral monotherapy for adults with the rare blood disorder paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
Lilly’s Jaypirca (pirtobrutinib) can now be used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic leukemia that had progressed from at least two prior lines of therapy, in addition to its previously-approved indications.
The Ogsiveo tablets are the first approval therapy for the rare subtype of soft tissue sarcomas, which can lead to severe pain and disability and previously were treated primarily through surgery.
The company’s Truqap, in combination with its endocrine therapy Faslodex, has been approved by the regulator for adult patients with advanced HR-positive breast cancer with specific biomarker alterations.
Xtandi is now approved to treat nonmetastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer with biochemical recurrence at high risk for metastasis with or without a gonadotropin-releasing hormone analog therapy.
The company won the third FDA approval in a month for the anti-PD-1 blockbuster, allowing its first-line use in locally advanced unresectable or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.
After Bristol Myers Squibb picked up Augtyro as part of its $4.1 billion takeover of Turning Point Therapeutics last year, the ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer drug reached the regulatory finish line on Wednesday.