A federal jury awarded Insulet Corp. $452 million against Eoflow Co. Ltd., concluding that Eoflow and other defendants stole trade secrets to create the Eopatch, a device with striking similarities to Omnipod, Insulet’s market-dominating tubeless insulin pump.
Novartis AG lost its bid, at least for now, to delay generic competition to its blockbuster heart drug, Entresto (sacubitril, valsartan), on the basis of patent infringement.
The U.S. CMS has negotiated outcomes-based agreements with Bluebird Bio Inc. and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. to make their costly sickle cell gene therapies the first treatments to become available through the voluntary Medicaid Cell and Gene Therapy Access Model.
Elevar Therapeutics Inc. will license Relay Therapeutics Inc.’s “NDA-ready” bile duct cancer therapy, lirafugratinib (RLY-4008), through a potential $500 million deal as Elevar, an HLB Co. Ltd. subsidiary, seeks to diversify its oncology portfolio following the U.S. FDA rejection of its liver cancer drug candidate in May.
Shares of Relmada Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:RLMD) plummeted 77% to close at 63 cents Dec. 4 after a pre-planned interim analysis prompted the independent data monitoring committee to conclude the phase III Reliance II study testing REL-1017 in major depressive disorder is likely to fail, leaving the future of the NMDA receptor channel blocker in doubt while the company looks ahead to an earlier-stage psilocybin-based program targeting metabolic disease.
Beacon Biosignals Inc. can rest easy now that it has received U.S. FDA authorization of its predetermined change control plan for the Dreem 3s, a wearable sleep monitor that conducts electroencephalograms as users sleep. The authorization allows Beacon to incorporate updates to the Dreem 3S sleep-staging algorithm acquired through machine learning without submitting a new 510(k) application.
At long last, the U.S. FDA finalized guidance on using predetermined change control plans in submissions for medical devices that include artificial intelligence. The guidance, “Marketing Submission Recommendations for a Predetermined Change Control Plan for Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Device Software Functions,” aims to support the iterative improvement central to many algorithms while minimizing potential issues with safety and efficacy.
Our immune cells are not just “defenders” against deadly viruses and pathogens but also a great balancer for tissue homeostasis. For neurological disorders, understanding the neuro-immune axis could be key to treating previously untreatable conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, according to Jun R. Huh, professor of immunology at Harvard Medical School.
South Korean billionaire and chairman of Celltrion Group Jungjin Seo is returning Celltrion Inc. to its contract manufacturing organization (CMO) roots, as it relies on biosimilar sales to anchor the company in a fiercely competitive novel drug R&D arena.
The congressional finger-pointing at pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) continues. The latest singling out is in a bipartisan letter from four House members calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and hold PBMs accountable for the role they played in the nationwide opioid crisis.