Novartis drug iptacopan, which won its first FDA approval in early December in a rare blood disorder, has met the main goal of a pivotal test in an ultra-rare kidney disease. The small molecule’s potential to address many diseases has stirred up blockbuster expectations. By FRANK VINLUAN The blockbuster potential for new Novartis drug iptacopan rests on the molecule’s ability to reach many diseases. The drug is on the way to its first one, following a recent FDA approval in a rare blood disorder. Now Novartis has data in a different rare disease with no approved treatment options. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant says these results could support regulatory submissions in 2024. While Novartis has said iptacopan could achieve peak sales topping $3 billion, the company has provided no breakdown of that projection by indication. The results announced Monday are from a Phase 3 test of iptacopan in C3 glomerulopathy (C3G), ...
Vanda Pharmaceuticals has a new commercial asset under its belt after striking a deal to buy certain rights to Johnson & Johnson’s multiple sclerosis med Ponvory for $100 million. Vanda secured U.S. and Canadian rights to the daily oral selective sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 (S1P1R) modulator from J&J’s Actelion subsidiary. Ponvory was approved in 2021 to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis and could be a potential treatment for a group of inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, including psoriasis and ulcerative colitis, Vanda said in its Thursday press release. The buy is a “significant milestone” for Vanda, CEO and chairman Mihael H. Polymeropoulos, M.D., said in a statement. The deal “expands our commercial portfolio and gives us access to a versatile immune response modifier that can potentially have broad application in treating a number of autoimmune-based disorders,” the chief added. J&J’s sale of certain Ponvory rights comes after Fierce Pharma in February ...
IGM Biosciences plans to axe 22% of its workforce, becoming the latest company to downsize in a bid to free cash resources. Amid the layoffs, the US-based biotechnology company will also reprioritise its pipeline, discontinuing operations for all haematologic oncology and targeted cytokine product development while doubling down on its efforts in the clinical development of T cell engagers for autoimmune diseases and a DR5 agonist for colorectal cancer. IGM expects the restructuring to extend the company’s cash runway into Q2 2026. The restructuring comes less than a month after the company said it anticipated an increase in headcount to support the research and development of its pipeline candidates, citing its intent to advance and expand its antibody product pipeline, in its 13 November 10-Q filing. In the same filing, the company acknowledged that it had significant net losses to date and that achieving profitability sufficient enough to offset the ...
Novartis’ Fabhalta (iptacopan) has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the first oral monotherapy for adults with paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH), a rare blood disease affecting approximately ten to 20 people per million worldwide. PNH patients have an acquired mutation that causes them to produce red blood cells susceptible to premature destruction by the complement system, which can cause anaemia, thrombosis, fatigue and other symptoms that can impact quality of life. The disease has a significant unmet need, Novartis reports, with a large proportion of patients on anti-C5 treatment remaining anaemic and dependent on blood transfusions. Fabhalta is a factor B inhibitor of the immune system’s complement pathway and offers an alternative to therapies that need to be delivered by infusion or injection. Victor Bultó, president US, Novartis, described the approval as an “extraordinary moment” for the PNH community. “This new, effective oral medicine may ...
The European Commission (EC) has approved UCB’s Zilbrysq (zilucoplan) as an add-on therapy for certain patients with generalised myasthenia gravis (gMG), a rare autoimmune disease with a global prevalence of 100 to 350 cases per one million people. The marketing authorisation, which specifically applies to adults who are anti-acetylcholine receptor (AChR) antibody-positive, makes Zilbrysq the first once-daily subcutaneous, targeted component 5 (C5) complement inhibitor for gMG. Patients with gMG can experience a variety of symptoms, including severe muscular weakness that can result in double vision, drooping eyelids, difficulty swallowing, chewing and talking, and life-threatening weakness of the muscles of respiration. UCB’s Zilbrysq inhibits complement-mediated damage to the neuromuscular junction through its targeted dual mechanism of action, the company said, adding that the therapy can be used simultaneously with intravenous immunoglobulin and plasma exchange without the need for supplemental dosing. The EC’s decision was supported by positive results from the late-stage ...
Americans can’t afford their medications. About 25% leave prescriptions unfilled, split pills, or skip doses. Seniors face challenges covering non-Medicare services, including prescriptions. Even those with commercial health insurance are not immune. One-third of insured adults worry about affording their premiums, and 44% must meet increasingly high deductibles before insurance even kicks in. As a result, 41% of adults carry substantial medical debt. At the same time, FDA approvals for therapeutics targeting rare diseases are on the rise, including those for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and many previously untreatable diseases. In fact, 54% of 2022’s novel drug approvals targeted rare diseases. They encompass groundbreaking therapies like the first acid sphingomyelinase deficiency treatment, a prurigo nodularis remedy, and an obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy therapy. In 2023, the first enzyme replacement therapy for non-neurological alpha-mannosidosis effects gained early approval. Breakthroughs, though welcome, are staggeringly expensive. In fact, Hemgenix, a new treatment for hemophilia, is officially ...
Eli Lilly has entered into a licence and collaboration agreement with PRISM BioLab aimed at discovering oral inhibitors of a protein-protein interaction (PPI) target, with the deal worth over $660m. The partnership centres around PRISM’s proprietary PepMetics technology, which the Japanese biotech says has the potential to “expand the field of drug discovery by turning previously undruggable PPIs into targets readily druggable with small molecules and by generating oral small molecule alternatives for injectable biologics”. Despite PPI dysfunction being implicated in a broad range of diseases, including cancer, fibrosis and autoimmune disorders, only a small proportion of PPIs are targeted by approved drugs. Lilly, which will select the first PPI target, has the option to add another two to the collaboration and will be responsible for the clinical development and commercialisation of any resulting products. In exchange, PRISM will receive undisclosed upfront payments from Lilly and will be eligible to ...
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced its intention to investigate the safety of CAR-T therapies following reports that they could be linked to the development of T-cell cancers. Following reports from clinical trials and post-marketing adverse event data sources, the wide probe is directed at patients who received treatment with all currently approved BCMA- or CD19-directed autologous CAR-T cell immunotherapies. CAR-T-cell therapy is a type of immunotherapy that involves collecting and using patients’ own immune cells to treat conditions including lymphoma, leukaemia and multiple myeloma. T-cell malignancies have been seen in patients treated with several approved products in the class, including Bristol Myers Squibb’s (BMS) Abecma (idecabtagene vicleucel) and Breyanzi (lisocabtagene maraleucel), Johnson & Johnson and Legend Biotech’s Carvykti (ciltacabtagene autoleucel), Novartis’s Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel), and Gilead and Kite’s Yescarta’s Tecartus (brexucabtagene autoleucel) and Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel). Currently, the potential risk of developing secondary malignancies is labelled as ...
Boehringer Ingelheim and IBM have announced a partnership aimed at advancing generative artificial intelligence (AI) and foundation models for therapeutic antibody development. The collaboration agreement will see Boehringer use an IBM-developed, pre-trained AI model that will be “further fine-tuned” on the German drugmaker’s specific proprietary data to help accelerate the pace at which it can create new antibody therapeutics. The companies noted that, despite “major” technological advances, the discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies against diverse targets remains a “highly complex and time-consuming process”. IBM’s foundation model technologies, which have already shown success in generating biologics and small molecules with relevant target affinities, are used to design antibody candidates for specific disease targets. These are then screened with AI-enhanced simulation to select and refine the best binders for the target. Boehringer Ingelheim outlined that it will produce small quantities of the candidates that can be tested experimentally. Andrew Nixon, global ...
US-based Generation Bio is cutting its workforce by 40%, becoming the latest company to announce lay-offs to save money this year. The restructuring includes the departure of key personnel, with medical chief Douglass Kerr and development leader Tracy Zimmerman among those leaving. The 29 November announcement adds to a series of setbacks in the field, with the cell therapy startup NexImmune reducing its workforce by over half this year, halting the development of its three adoptive T cell therapies. Generation anticipates that the downsizing and streamlining of its research and development focus will result in a cost-saving of $120m over the next three years, as outlined in a 27 November SEC filing. In April, Takeda announced that it was moving away from the adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapies sector amidst difficulties associated with gene therapy research development at the preclinical stage, highlighting that it is unlikely that many current AAV ...
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