Novartis and AstraZeneca won recommendations for important new drugs from European regulators on Friday, while rival Pfizer lost out. The European Medicines Agency said its Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) had endorsed Novartis’s Afinitor for treating breast cancer, in addition to other tumour types, as well as another product for lung disease. It also okayed AstraZeneca’s new antibiotic Zinforo. Pfizer, however, failed to secure backing for Elelyso, a new treatment for Gaucher disease that was approved in the United States in May. Elelyso was developed with Protalix Biotherapeutics and is a rival to both Sanofi’s Cerezyme and Shire’s Vpriv.
