The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee grilled the CEOs of major pharmaceutical companies on what chairman Senator Bernie Sanders labelled “the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs” in the US. Despite intense interrogation, the CEOs made no solid commitments to improve drug prices in the US. The February 8 hearing allowed US senators to question the CEOs of Merck & Co (MSD), Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) and Johnson & Johnson (J&J) about their drug prices in the US and potential solutions to target high costs. Sanders highlighted price discrepancies between the US and other countries, pointing out that the list price for MSD’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) is approximately $191,000 in the US, but $112,000 in Canada. On the issue of differential pricing in different countries, BMS CEO Chris Boerner said that the lower prices in countries such as Canada reduced access to essential medications. He said that patients ...
Hemogenyx has received the all-clear from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin a Phase I clinical trial of its acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-therapy in the US. In June 2023, the US FDA placed a clinical hold on the trial for HEMO-CAR-T, requesting additional information from Hemogenyx after a splicing deficiency during manufacture of the lentivirus used to produce CAR-T cells. Hemogenyx produced a plan, supported by laboratory tests to address FDA’s concerns in August 2023, which was accepted the following month. In January, the London, UK-based biopharma issued a complete response to the agency to lift the hold. Hemogenyx’s stock price has increased by 62% following the announcement of the lifting of the hold today (9 February) since the market close yesterday. CAR-T therapies have been hitting the headlines recently after the FDA launched an investigation into the incidence of potentially associated ...
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted breakthrough therapy designation (BTD) to Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) nipocalimab for alloimmunised pregnant people at increased risk of increased severe haemolytic disease of the foetus and newborn (HDFN), which can cause life-threatening anaemia. This investigational therapy is the only one in the clinics for the condition, which occurs when the blood types of the pregnant individual and the foetus are incompatible. Nipocalimab is a fully human, aglycosylated, effectorless, monoclonal antibody designed to hinder the neonatal fragment crystallisable receptor (FcRn) and reduce levels of circulating immunoglobulin G antibodies. The regulator granted BTD based on findings from the proof-of-concept, open-label Phase II UNITY clinical trial of the therapy. The multicentre, international, non-blinded trial assessed nipocalimab’s efficacy, safety, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. The study met this primary endpoint with 54% of pregnant subjects. A small number of severe adverse events were reported in the study. ...
Hemogenyx has received the all-clear from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin a Phase I clinical trial of its acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-therapy in the US. In June 2023, the US FDA placed a clinical hold on the trial for HEMO-CAR-T, requesting additional information from Hemogenyx after a splicing deficiency during manufacture of the lentivirus used to produce CAR-T cells. Hemogenyx produced a plan, supported by laboratory tests to address FDA’s concerns in August 2023, which was accepted the following month. In January, the London, UK-based biopharma issued a complete response to the agency to lift the hold. Hemogenyx’s stock price has increased by 62% following the announcement of the lifting of the hold today (9 February) since the market close yesterday.CAR-T therapies have been hitting the headlines recently after the FDA launched an investigation into the incidence of potentially associated secondary ...
Stalicla announced the successful closing of a $17.4m Series B funding round as deal-making interest stirs in the central nervous system disorder space. “In the current environment, we see this [financing round] as a huge success, but we’re targeting a much larger round in Q3 2024 with the involvement of large venture capital funds,” says Stalicla CEO Lynn Durham in an exclusive interview with Pharmaceutical Technology. Stalicla aims to use the extra funds to launch a Phase III substance use disorder (SUD) study for its STP7 mGluR5 Negative Allosteric Modulator (mGluR5 NAM) platform in 2025. The US National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institutes of Health are supporting Stalicla’s development of STP7.Stalicla acquired the therapy through an in-licensing agreement with Novartis in January 2023. In this deal, the Swiss company acquired the worldwide rights for studies using the STP7 platform for SUD, neurodevelopmental disorders, and other indications in ...
Mark your calendars, oncology drug and CAR-T therapy developers. The FDA has decided on a date for a highly anticipated advisory committee meeting to discuss applications for Bristol Myers Squibb’s Abecma and Johnson & Johnson’s Carvykti. The FDA will convene its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) for a full-day meeting March 15 to review the applications for BMS and 2seventy bio’s Abecma and J&J and Legend Biotech’s Carvykti in earlier treatment of multiple myeloma, a government filing shows. External experts invited by the FDA will review clinical data from Carvykti’s CARTITUDE-4 trial and Abecma’s KarMMa-3 study. In both cases, overall survival data will be the focus of the discussions. The meeting is expected to carry a lot of weight in the oncology community. For one, industry watchers are trying to take the FDA’s pulse around the benefit-risk profile of CAR-T cell therapies amid an investigation into a new safety signal ...
Individuals with Jewish ancestry are six times more likely to carry a genetic fault.The NHS has announced the launch of a new BRCA gene testing programme to identify cancer risk early in individuals with Jewish ancestry. People with Jewish ancestry are about six times more likely to carry a genetic fault, which can increase the risk of developing some cancers, than the general population. Across the next two years, the national NHS Jewish BRCA Testing Programme plans to identify thousands more people carrying faults in the BRCA genes so they can seek early access to surveillance and prevention services. In alignment with the health services drive to catch tumours earlier, when they are easier to treat, anyone over the age of 18 years with Jewish ancestry will be eligible to receive a simple genetic saliva test to look for the presence of BRCA1 or BRCA2 faults. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are ...
When the Biden administration welcomed the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, it marked a rare defeat for the pharmaceutical industry in Washington, D.C. Naturally, drugmakers didn’t lie down without a fight on the controversial topic of Medicare price negotiations. Now, new developments show that the Biden administration is willing to go to the mat in defense of the IRA negotiations. Wednesday, lawyers for AstraZeneca are set to engage in oral arguments against the U.S. Department of Justice in a federal court, according to a September court order and a new report from Bloomberg Law. The British drugmaker aims to challenge the legality of the drug pricing provisions put in place under the IRA, which will allow Medicare to haggle over the prices of some of the costliest drugs it covers starting in 2026. AstraZeneca’s diabetes blockbuster Farxiga ranks among the 10 drugs that were selected ...
With the unusual threat of a Senate subpoena hanging over their heads, the CEOs of Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. have agreed to join their counterpart at Bristol Myers Squibb in testifying before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). Friday, the HELP Committee’s chairman, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), said J&J’s Joaquin Duato and Merck’s Robert Davis have “reconsidered their positions” and have agreed to join BMS’ CEO Chris Boerner at a committee hearing scheduled for February 8. Duato and Davis’ cooperation comes shortly Sanders said the HELP Committee would vote to subpoena the CEOs after they declined a previous invitation to talk drug pricing. That subpoena vote has now been called off, the Committee said in a press release Friday. Sanders’ HELP Committee has already been crusading against steep drug prices over the past year. The committee has already heard testimony from chief executives ...
The FDA’s letter demanding a labeling change for Gilead Sciences’ Tecartus temporarily went missing on the agency’s website Tuesday. Turns out, the FDA didn’t drop the CD19 CAR-T from a classwide safety alert list. Instead, the agency has adjusted the wording of a proposed boxed warning. In a revised letter (PDF) dated Jan. 23, the FDA is still pressing Gilead’s cell therapy unit Kite Pharma to include new language about the risk of T-cell malignancies in the black-box warning section of Tecartus’ label. But unlike its proposed boxed warning for other commercial CAR-T therapies, the FDA’s updated letter for Tecartus no longer names Tecartus patients specifically as having experienced T-cell malignancies. The FDA apparently took some time before uploading the new letter after taking down the original one, dated Jan. 19. The missing letter for Tecartus caused a brief period of confusion because the FDA says in all letters to ...
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