FDA
Rocket Pharmaceuticals’ strategic realignment initiative in July pulled funding from fanca-cel, which the biotech was developing for Fanconi anemia.
FEATURED STORIES
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.
With a flurry of recent Big Pharma investment in radiopharmaceutical therapeutics, the FDA issued draft guidance last month in a move former FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn sees as the regulator “trying to get ahead on a new set of therapy that they see becoming very important for cancer.”
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A decade-long journey has come to an end for Stealth BioTherapeutics and the Barth syndrome community with the first-ever treatment for this uncommon mitochondrial disease. CEO Reenie McCarthy called it a “pivotal victory” that “offers hope for expedited regulatory attention to other ultra-rare diseases.”
Investors had been “holding out hope” that there remained a regulatory path forward for RP1, but results of Replimune’s Type A meeting with the FDA do not appear to support this, according to BMO Capital Markets.
Listen now for a high-level discussion on overcoming pharmaceutical supply chain challenges through end-to-end integration.
CDER Director George Tidmarsh said on two separate events last week that he thought advisory committee meetings for specific drug applications were redundant, but then denied having said the agency would abandon them.
On the FDA’s docket for the back half of September is Merck’s proposed subcutaneous formulation of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda.
After receiving a complete response letter for its pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency candidate, Saol Therapeutics anticipates it will need “several years” and “significant financial resources” to address the FDA’s concerns.
While a win for consumers, the regulatory action did nothing to stem the manufacture of compounded versions of the popular obesity drugs that are made by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. In fact, the FDA seems to be signaling that “some level of compounded product is acceptable,” according to BMO Capital Markets.
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.
Perhaps the most interesting of the pile of FDA rejection letters was for Lykos Therapeutics’ MDMA therapy. Letters sent to Stealth BioTherapeutics, Regeneron and more were also released as the agency also promised future CRLs “promptly after they are issued to sponsors.”
While the new framework signals continued flexibility at the FDA regarding rare disease approvals, some analysts and advocates question what tangible impacts the new guidelines will have.