FDA
The FDA’s year-end rush includes nine target action dates, mostly for rare disease and cancer therapies.
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.
President-elect Donald Trump and his incoming administration are unlikely to attempt a wholesale restructuring of U.S. healthcare and could promote M&A activity, but controversial picks like Robert F. Kennedy could impact vaccine sales, experts say.
The agency’s warning letter outlines Applied Therapeutics’ failure to provide adequate information regarding the clinical trial—including a dosing error for govorestat—claims that the company said it had already addressed.
Novartis, Gilead, Roche and Takeda commit to new partners in a spate of mid-sized collaborations this week. Meanwhile, Applied Therapeutics’ stock tanks 80% after govorestat is denied approval, Intra-Cellular Therapies seeks to expand Caplyta into major depressive disorder and the FDA investigates the safety of bluebird bio’s Skysona.
The cancers were diagnosed 19 to 92 months after Skysona treatment.
After extending its review period to evaluate additional submissions, the FDA ultimately denied Applied Therapeutics’ govorestat for galactosemia, citing “deficiencies” with the application. The biotech plans to meet with the regulator to discuss the best way forward for the drug.
Despite hotly debated biomarkers and failed or delayed confirmatory trials, the accelerated approval program has a track record of propelling R&D for some of medicine’s most challenging illnesses.
Career conservative and former congressman Dave Weldon will, if confirmed, act as director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, where his anti-vaccine views will mesh with those of selected Department of Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
With two decisions originally scheduled for this week already announced, including BridgeBio’s approval in ATTR-CM, the regulator has just one PDUFA on its plate this holiday week.
PRESS RELEASES