Staar Surgical Co. reported that its 45-day window shop period ended on Sept. 19 with no competing bids made, and it urged its shareholders to vote in favor of completing the $1.5 billion cash merger with Alcon AG.
The second day’s meeting of the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) took up guidelines related to COVID-19 vaccines, of which an outspoken skeptic is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy – who in June fired all 17 members of ACIP and replaced them with names more to his liking.
After a long regulatory road that included a complete response letter in May, Stealth Biotherapeutics Inc. finally got its Barth syndrome drug across the finish line, with the U.S. FDA granting accelerated approval to Forzinity (elamipretide HCl) to improve muscle strength in those with the ultra-rare pediatric mitochondrial cardioskeletal disease.
As the first – and so far only – drug to enter clinical testing for the rare neurogenetic disorder Alexander disease, there were some unknowns heading into the readout of the pivotal study testing Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s zilganersen in children and adults. But the top-line data yielded a clear win for the antisense oligonucleotide candidate, which demonstrated a disease-modifying impact, including statistical significance on the primary endpoint of gait speed as assessed by the 10-Meter Walk Test vs. control at week 61.
The U.S. FDA approved Merck & Co. Inc.’s Keytruda Qlex (pembrolizumab and berahyaluronidase alfa-pmph) injection on Sept. 19, making it the first and only subcutaneously (SC)-administered immune checkpoint inhibitor that can be administered in about a minute.
Medtronic plc received U.S. FDA approval for Altaviva, a minimally invasive implantable tibial neuromodulation device designed to treat urge urinary incontinence. Insertion near the ankle requires neither sedation nor imaging and patients walk out the clinic door with the device already activated.
Organox Ltd.’s normothermic machine perfusion device, Metra, has been cleared by the U.S. FDA for use during air transport. The greenlight from the regulatory body paves the way for the broader use of donor organs that might otherwise be discarded, as the Metra system circulates oxygen and nutrient rich perfusate through the organ at near-body temperature, extending preservation times.
A committee of the House of Representatives advanced a bill that if passed will give eligible breakthrough medical devices four years of Medicare coverage.
The U.S. FDA cleared 18 drugs in August, comparable to July’s 17 but down from June’s 23 approvals. That brings the 2025 U.S. total through August to 143, matching 2020 as the second-highest count on record for BioWorldfor the period, after 2024’s high of 159.
Renewing hopes of restoring the rare pediatric disease priority review voucher (RPD PRV) program that expired at the end of 2024, the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 47-0 Sept. 17 to advance the Give Kids a Chance Act of 2025 (H.R. 1262), one of six pieces of legislation slated to move to the full U.S. House for consideration.
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