The casual observer may think that physician speaker programs sponsored by makers of drugs and medical devices have drawn less attention from U.S. federal attorneys, but reality has failed to meet that expectation. Mark Gardner, managing attorney of Gardner Law of Stillwater, Minn., said on a Nov. 19 webinar that “there’s a lot coming through right now in terms of settlements,” including a settlement with a drug maker that sent the company into bankruptcy.
If the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has its way, one of the casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic would be the in-person speaker programs many drug and device companies sponsor. The OIG issued a special fraud alert Nov. 16 questioning the need for such events in which health care professionals are often paid a hefty honorarium or fee to provide colleagues with information that’s readily available online and in the labeling of a drug or device.
DUBLIN – Canakinumab, an interleukin-1 beta (IL-1beta) inhibitor, has joined a growing list of immunomodulatory therapies that have failed to demonstrate efficacy in COVID-19. Novartis AG said that an interim analysis showed the drug did not meet the primary endpoint of clinical response.
LONDON – Former CEO of Novartis AG Joe Jimenez is emerging back into the limelight as founder and managing director of Aditum Bio, a new $135 million venture capital fund set up to create five to six companies to take forward early stage compounds in-licensed from pharma.
Novartis AG is expanding its position in the optogenetics space with the acquisition of Vedere Bio Inc., bringing with it a program aimed at vision loss prevention and treatment. Shareholders of Vedere, created in June 2019 through the Atlas Venture incubator, received $150 million up front and are eligible for up to $130 million in milestone payments, bringing the total to $280 million.
With the world heading straight into a "very tough" stretch of the COVID-19 pandemic in which "too many countries are seeing an exponential increase in cases," according to World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, two lucrative deals announced Oct. 28 showed little slack in efforts to confront the virus, even as evidence is still developing.
DUBLIN – Priothera Ltd. closed a €30 million (US$35.4 million) series A round to shepherd an oral sphingosine 1 phosphate (S1P) receptor agonist through clinical development in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who are undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).
Attributing recent reductions in certain U.S. prescription drug prices to intense congressional scrutiny rather than a biopharma industry commitment to affordability, Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) said Congress must put more guardrails in place and restructure how the industry does business.
Rather than the in-your-face, blame-and-shame show that was expected, the Sept. 30 drug pricing hearing before the U.S. House Oversight Committee was more a reminder of the policy differences between Democrats and Republicans on how best to make prescription drugs more affordable.
HONG KONG – Novartis AG was cited during the recent 2020 KoNECT-MOHW-MFDS International Conference as an example of a biopharma firm staying ahead of the artificial intelligence curve.
