News
Sanofi and Novartis kick off the heart of earnings season; Lilly strikes its fourth pact in as many weeks; Regeneron earns landmark approval for a gene therapy for a type of genetic deafness, and also strikes a White House deal; FDA asks Amgen to withdraw Tavneos and, separately, issues Commissioner’s National Priority Vouches to three unnamed psychedelics companies.
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Cancer cocktails pairing Moderna’s mRNA-4359 with Merck’s Keytruda and Marengo’s invikafusp alfa with Gilead Sciences’ Trodelvy showed promising results, while a complex combination by Agenus and MiNK Therapeutics failed to elicit an overall response.
The new CEO has at least five years and a large M&A war chest to position Sanofi for life after the loss of exclusivity on its cornerstone immunology product.
As cell and gene therapy leaders gathered in Maryland to discuss accelerating clinical trials in children, one “cutting edge” session focused on the need to expedite more bespoke gene editing treatments like the one that saved young KJ Muldoon.
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These five upcoming data drops could usher in more effective and convenient therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and open up novel pathways of action to treat the memory-robbing illness.
The Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers aim to offer accelerated pathways to drugs that meet certain criteria, perhaps including a low price-tag. But the policy is vaguely defined and was announced without public input, going against the FDA’s own published practices, experts say.
The collaboration focuses on ‘molecular gates,’ a class of molecules that the startup company Gate Bioscience says can stop pathogenic proteins from leaving the cell.
The European Union’s health regulatory agency did not endorse approving Elevidys for ambulatory patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
The strategic reprioritization comes after the company hit two major hurdles in the past year, including a clinical hold for an investigational gene therapy and an FDA rejection for its lead asset.
CBER is unanimously against Elevdiys’ return to the market without additional evidence, according to media reports citing an anonymous senior FDA official. Given Elevidys’ full approval, however, experts told BioSpace this path would set up a length legal battle between the regulator and Sarepta Therapeutics.
The company didn’t share specific data for the molecule, gefurulimab, but said it hit all endpoints in the Phase III PREVAIL trial and promised to share more at an upcoming scientific meeting.
The partnership with Matchpoint Therapeutics gets Novartis global rights on all molecules for several unannounced inflammatory diseases identified through the biotech’s discovery platform.
Companies sometimes miss the mark when it comes to telling employees they’re out of a job. From accidental goodbyes to surprise meetings, there are many strange ways biopharma professionals have learned about layoffs.
Second-quarter earnings come amid many high-level challenges for the biopharma industry. How will these five closely watched biotechs fare?