The European Commission has granted marketing authorisation to EirGenix’s Herceptin (trastuzumab) biosimilar for marketing in the European Union. The biosimilar has been approved as a treatment for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive (HER2-positive) breast cancer and metastatic gastric cancers, as per a 22 November press release. Herceptin is a monoclonal antibody that binds to HER2 receptors, thereby priming these receptors for immune system targeting. The drug generated SFr1.26bn ($1.4bn) in year-to-date (YTD) sales in September, as per Roche’s Q3 financials. Sandoz is responsible for the worldwide commercialisation of EirGenix’s Herceptin biosimilar, except in Taiwan, China, Russia, and some Asian countries, based on the 22 November press release. Meanwhile, EirGenix holds the developmental, commercialisation and manufacturing rights for the biosimilar in countries not covered by Sandoz. In September, EirGenix’s Herceptin biosimilar received a positive recommendation from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines ...
By Kate Goodwin Pictured: Closed sign/iStock, StockSeller_ukr After a couple of disappointing years, a microbiome biotech founded by Flagship Pioneering is calling it quits. In an SEC filing Monday, Evelo Biosciences reported that dissolution is “in the best interest” of the company as well as its creditors and stockholders. The company was launched in 2015 by Flagship to develop inflammation-resolving microbe medicines to act on cells in the small intestine with systemic therapeutic effects for inflammatory diseases. However, the past two years have been tough for Cambridge, Mass.-based Evelo as one by one each of its assets disappointed. After a Phase II failure in April 2022, its second atopic dermatitis candidate in Phase II testing did not meet the trial’s primary endpoint in February 2023. The company pointed to an unusually high placebo response rate. The results sent Evelo’s stock tumbling 50% at the time and the company cut around ...
By Tristan Manalac Ahead of the 65th Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology, taking place Dec. 9 to 12, event organizers on Tuesday released late-breaking abstracts providing an early view of some of the most high-impact studies in blood disorders to be presented at the conference. Focus on two of those studies below. J&J, Genmab’s Darzalex Faspro Early data from the Phase III PERSEUS study showed that J&J and Genmab’s subcutaneous anti-CD38 antibody Darzalex Faspro (daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj) significantly prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM). PERSEUS enrolled 709 patients in total, of whom 355 were randomly assigned to receive Darzalex Faspro combined with bortezomib, lenalidomide and dexamethasone (VRd). At a median follow-up of 47.5 months, patients treated with the Darzalex Faspro regimen saw a significantly better PFS versus comparators who received VRd alone. The effect had a hazard ratio of ...
Earlier this year, a young man in his mid-thirties with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma came to my oncology clinic for a chemotherapy infusion while waiting on the development of his CAR-T treatment. Under normal circumstances, our practice can move quickly when scheduling patients for their treatments since our in-office infusion clinic maintains an inventory of necessary medications that we prepare ourselves onsite. But, unbeknownst to me, my patient’s health insurance plan included a policy called “white bagging,”- a policy which we soon discovered when they denied one of the chemotherapy drugs I prescribed. Our clinical team repeatedly appealed the denial; however, the plan refused to cover the drug unless it was fulfilled through an unspecified designated specialty pharmacy associated with the patient’s pharmacy benefit manager. Eventually, we were able to negotiate coverage through our practice’s internal inventory, but by the time the patient was able to receive the drug four weeks had ...
Boehringer Ingelheim has said it will be acquiring bacterial cancer therapy specialist T3 Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth over $500m, marking a significant boost to its immuno-oncology portfolio. Boehringer said it is seeking to “significantly increase” the current 15 to 20% remission rate in cancer patients by utilising complementary immuno-oncology platforms such as T-cell engagers, oncolytic viruses and cancer vaccines. T3, founded in 2015 as a spinout from the University of Basel in Switzerland, has developed a proprietary therapy platform that uses live bacteria to deliver immune-modulating proteins directly to cancer cells and tumour micro-environments while sparing healthy tissues. The bacteria can be loaded with multiple immune-modulatory proteins of choice, allowing the design of immuno-oncology combination therapies in one single agent. Michel Pairet, member of the board of managing directors at Boehringer with responsibility for the Innovation Unit, said: “The acquisition of T3 Pharma will significantly expand our immuno-oncology pipeline ...
Merck & Co – known as MSD outside the US and Canada – has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Caraway Therapeutics, with the deal worth up to $610m. The acquisition gives Merck access to the preclinical biopharma’s pipeline of small-molecule therapeutics for genetically defined neurodegenerative and rare diseases. Mutations that impair cellular clearance pathways are associated with multiple neurodegenerative and rare diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders characterised by cognitive dysfunction, according to Caraway. The company focuses on discovering small molecules that activate cellular recycling processes to clear toxic materials and defective cellular components by modulating lysosomal function. George Addona, senior vice president, discovery, preclinical development and translational medicine at Merck Research Laboratories, said: “Caraway’s multidisciplinary approach has yielded important progress in evaluating novel mechanisms of modulation of lysosomal function with potential for the treatment of progressive neurodegenerative diseases. “We look forward to applying our expertise to build upon this ...
By Tristan Manalac InDex Pharmaceuticals on Tuesday announced that it is discontinuing the Phase III CONCLUDE program, which was evaluating its investigational immunomodulatory therapeutic cobitolimod in ulcerative colitis. The decision to terminate the late-stage study is in line with the recommendations of an Independent Data Monitoring Committee, which found during a planned dose selection, safety and futility analysis that cobitolimod is “unlikely” to meet the study’s primary endpoint, according to the company’s announcement. At the same time, InDex noted that the committee’s advice to discontinue the study was not due to any safety concerns. InDex CEO Jenny Sundqvist in a statement called the committee’s recommendation “surprising and disappointing,” adding that cobitolimod’s failure in CONCLUDE highlights the “complexity of the disease” and points to the need for more research to address the “high unmet medical need” in ulcerative colitis. The company’s stock was trading approximately 59% lower on Wednesday morning in ...
Dive Brief The Food and Drug Administration voiced concerns in a Monday letter that Cardinal Health failed to sufficiently mitigate the risk of incompatibility between its syringes and certain pumps in its communication to healthcare providers. Cardinal wrote to its customers in September to explain that some lots of Monoject Luer-lock tip syringes are incompatible with certain infusion pumps, leading to a Class I recall notice covering the device correction. The recall affects more than 32 million syringes. Days after posting the Class 1 notice, the FDA revised recommendations for healthcare providers. It said the dimensional changes made to Cardinal Health’s Monoject syringes, when used with syringe pumps or patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) pumps, may result in issues that include overdose, underdose, or delays in therapy or occlusion alarms. Dive Insight On Monday, the FDA moved to clarify the advice for healthcare providers in a notice titled “Do Not Use Cardinal ...
Don Tracy, Associate Editor Study aims to find ways industry gets involved in the most influential clinical trials, and how transparent these trials are. In a study published earlier this month by JAMA, the authors aimed to discover how the pharmaceutical industry gets involved in the most influential modern clinical trials and how they fare in terms of transparency. Crediting the major impact of these clinical trials on medical practice, the authors believed that it was important to evaluate the extent of industry involvement and the use of transparency practices in such studies published in the last few years. In order to find a sufficient answer, the study relied on a meta-research assessment consisting of 600 randomized and nonrandomized clinical trials published in 2019 or later. Trials that attracted the highest number of number of citations in Scopus as of December 2022 were selected for analysis, occurring from March to ...
With approval granted from the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), Merz Therapeutics’ Xeomin (incobotulinumtoxinA) enters the Australian market as the first and only neurotoxin treatment for chronic sialorrhea or excessive drooling in adults and children. Xeomin, a botulinum toxin type A with accessory proteins, is designed to block the release of neurotransmitter acetylcholine, thereby inhibiting signal transduction and incapacitating the body’s ability to contract voluntary muscles. Sialorrhea is a common symptom associated with Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cerebral palsy (CP), stroke, and acquired brain injuries. The TGA approval follows a series of greenlights by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The drug, which is currently approved for adults and children in the US, was originally granted approval in the EU to treat chronic sialorrhea in adults in 2019. The EMA approval was awarded based on data from the Phase III SIAXI ...
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