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FDA
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary intends to resign on Tuesday, according to several sources. This report follows a tumultuous 13-month tenure in which Makary oversaw the controversial rejections of several rare disease drugs and “predictable volatility” within the agency.
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New guidelines from two leading medical associations suggest that efforts to reduce bad cholesterol should focus on maintaining low levels of two key lipoproteins. Big pharma is all in, looking to improve on the standard statins to help vanquish America’s number one killer: heart disease.
The FDA’s decision last year to make complete response letters public provides new insight into why therapies sometimes fail to get the regulatory greenlight. Analysts say the information could help sponsors refine their regulatory strategies.
The Department of Health and Human Services is spinning its wheels, unable to establish steady leadership at three major divisions—the CDC and the FDA’s two primary review units.
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FDA
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health department has consistently touted radical transparency as being key to its mission. Recent instances—the FDA’s decision not to disclose the recipients of three Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers and FDA and CDC choices not to publish vaccine-related papers—call this intent into question.
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In advance of an advisory committee meeting on Monday, the FDA’s internal reviewers have raised issues regarding Eli Lilly’s Alzheimer’s disease candidate donanemab, flagging problems with its study design and safety outcomes.
Both Eli Lilly and the partnered companies Boehringer Ingelheim and Zealand Pharma have mid-stage data readouts this week, fueling the race in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.
Zealand Pharma said on Thursday that partner Boehringer Ingelheim will present the results from the study on Friday at the European Association of the Study of Liver Congress.
Structure Therapeutics is offering over nine million shares on the heels of mid-stage data for its oral GLP-1 receptor agonist, which showed weight loss of 6.2% in overweight or obese patients.
Amgen’s CD19-directed antibody Uplizna in a late-stage study showed it can suppress the risk of flares by nearly 90% in patients with IgG4-related disease, the company announced Wednesday.
Novo Nordisk will face strong generic competition from at least 15 companies in China for its blockbuster GLP-1 receptor agonist products Wegovy and Ozempic, according to Reuters.
Telix Pharmaceuticals is looking to cash in on radiopharmaceuticals, which have emerged as one of the hottest spaces in oncology, with an initial public offering to help support its pipeline of targeted radiation products.
Moderna on Thursday said its investigational mRNA-based therapy for methylmalonic acidemia has been selected for the FDA’s accelerator program for rare diseases, dubbed START.
Securing top talent in research and development and manufacturing will remain challenging for life sciences companies in 2024, according to a new report by CBRE.
Gilead Sciences’ primary biliary cholangitis candidate seladelpar and Ipsen’s PBC asset elafibranor both showed encouraging Phase III results Wednesday, as they face looming FDA decision dates.