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While the FDA did not announce the recipient names of the Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers, the agency’s descriptions of the awarded products match those in development at Compass Pathways, Transcend Therapeutics and Usona Institute.
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The FDA is signaling change, but actual success depends on more than simply bringing in a new leader at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research; it requires accountability, transparency and consistent action.
Approved Thursday via the FDA’s Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program, Otarmeni is the first gene therapy for hearing loss—and the first treatment to target an underlying cause of the condition.
With a greenlight for ibogaine to enter clinical testing and three unnamed products set to receive Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers this week, it’s full speed ahead for psychedelics. But will sidestepping normal regulatory protocols actually be a net negative for the field?
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Doubling survival in pancreatic cancer, a long-fought rare disease approval, a massive IPO and ambitious biotech entrepreneurs have BioSpace Senior Editor Annalee Armstrong feeling upbeat about the biotech scene.
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By speeding lifesaving drugs’ way to market and focusing on the underlying causes of disease, the pathway has helped save many lives.
The FDA’s year-end rush includes nine target action dates, mostly for rare disease and cancer therapies.
The darlings of the weight loss and diabetes spaces, GLP-1 receptor agonists have shown promise against Alzheimer’s in recent studies—with Phase III results expected next year from Novo Nordisk.
The program has recently become controversial as a number of high-profile advanced approvals were granted only for the drugs to fail a confirmatory trial later on. Now, the FDA has clearly laid out expectations.
Protara is advancing a cell therapy that triggers both adaptive and innate antitumor immune responses, while CG Oncology’s approach makes use of an oncolytic immunotherapy that preferentially targets cancer cells and proliferates inside them, destroying them from the inside.
Eli Lilly is aggressively ramping up its manufacturing capacity for tirzepatide as compounding pharmacies continue to challenge an FDA decision to formally end the shortage of the obesity and diabetes drug.
It is not clear what specifically the new facility will produce, though Amgen could be ramping up its manufacturing capacity as it prepares to enter the obesity space with MariTide.
Iskra Reic will continue to serve as the pharma’s senior vice president for Vaccines and Immune Therapies as she steps in for Leon Wang, who was detained by Chinese authorities in November.
California-based biotech Nuvig Therapeutics scooped up $161 million from the investment arms of Sanofi, Bayer, Novo Holdings, BMS and others for its Fc fragment immunomodulator aimed at improving autoimmune dysregulation.
The Muna partnership will give GSK access to Muna’s MiND-MAP platform, which it will apply to postmortem brain samples to identify potential therapeutic targets for Alzheimer’s disease.