Citing the limited supplies and the pricing of the COVID-19 therapy, nearly three dozen U.S. states and territories are clamoring for the federal government to march in on Gilead Sciences Inc.’s patents for remdesivir. And if the feds won’t, then states should be given that authority, according to a letter sent Tuesday to the Department of Health and Human Services, the NIH and the FDA.
The share prices of blue-chip biopharmaceutical companies continued on their lackluster trajectory, which started in June and collectively lost ground last month, with the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical index slipping about 1.3% as investors took a break in order to digest the deluge of COVID-19 vaccine data released during the period and the impact on the bottom lines that the pandemic has exerted among those companies that have reported their second-quarter results.
Second-quarter earnings reports, flowing fast in the last days of July, delivered a bevy of contrasting results, from A to V. Stymied by the pandemic, Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. booked exactly zero net sales during the quarter for its expected blockbuster peanut allergy treatment, Palforzia. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Seattle Genetics Inc. beat top-line expectations, driven primarily by strong sales of new products.
The FDA approved Kite Pharma Inc.’s Tecartus (brexucabtagene autoleucel, KTE-X19), the first cell-based gene therapy for adults with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) who have not responded to or who have relapsed following other kinds of treatment.
DUBLIN – Although Europe has moved first to approve Blenrep (belantamab mafodotin), Glaxosmithkline plc’s antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) as a fifth-line therapy in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, U.S. patients may well be first to gain access to the new drug.
Glympse Bio has closed an oversubscribed $46.7 million series B financing, with an eye toward boosting its novel biosensor platform in fibrotic diseases, including nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), oncology and infectious diseases.
The checkpoint molecule CD47 has high hopes riding on it in oncology as being the innate immune equivalent of PD-1. Multiple companies are developing blockers against CD47 and/or its ligand, SIRPa, for the treatment of various tumors.
Forty years after HIV became a global pandemic, there are now more than 30 drugs approved to treat it. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ director, Anthony Fauci, and clinical director, Clifford Lane, opined in the July 2, 2020, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine that “considering the spectacular scientific advances that have been made over nearly four decades, it is conceivable that with optimal implementation of available prevention strategies and treatments, the end of HIV/AIDS as a global pandemic will be attainable.”