New regulations tighten regulatory oversight of China’s investigator-initiated trials (IITs) but legitimize the pathway that will be open to other modalities beyond cell and gene therapies.
As generic versions of its blockbuster drug Ofev (nintedanib) start to hit the market, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH looks to have swerved the patent cliff, with European and Japanese regulators both approving a potential replacement, Jascayd (nerandomilast), this week. At its monthly meeting, the EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use also recommended Novartis AG’s Vijoice (alpelisib) be given conditional approval in the treatment of PIK3CA-related overgrowth spectrum disorders.
As of May 21, the U.S. SEC’s “no-deny” settlement policy is dead. For the past 50 years, the agency has required settling defendants to sign an agreement stating that they neither admit nor deny the SEC’s allegations. And beyond that, the standard settlement prohibits, under threat of court action, the defendants from ever denying the allegations publicly. According to an SEC notice to be published in the May 21 Federal Register, the agency has reconsidered the issue and is now rescinding the no-deny rule.
The short story of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s May 19 opinion in Recor Medical Inc. v. Medtronic Ireland is that the lower court got it wrong when it ruled Medtronic lacked the required standing to bring an infringement countersuit against Recor because it had granted an exclusive license for products covered by the two asserted patents. The case was reversed and remanded.
The evolution of cancer diagnostics continues with the FDA’s May 20 approval of Guardant Health Inc.’s Guardant360 Liquid cDx. The new blood-based comprehensive genomic test assesses a 100-times wider genomic footprint than the previously approved Guardant360 cDx to deliver comprehensive tumor profiling results, according to the company. It noted that the seven companion diagnostic indications already approved for the older test will transfer to the new one.
In a move aimed at incentivizing companies to go and stay public, the U.S. SEC proposed two rulemakings May 19 as a foundation to the agency’s Make IPOs Great Again agenda.
Eli Lilly and Co. lost its bid to have the U.S. Supreme Court strike down the whistleblower provisions in the False Claims Act (FCA) as unconstitutional.
It’s back to the drawing board for the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). After a year of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy gutting the panel and restocking it mostly with people who share his views on vaccines, the CDC published a notice in the May 19 Federal Register saying it’s withdrawing the amended ACIP charter renewal issued April 6 and is instead “re-establishing” the committee.
On the heels of the ouster of Marty Makary as the U.S. FDA commissioner and the serial leadership vacancies at the CDC and the FDA’s drugs and biologics centers, the government’s adherence to science took another blow May 16 when Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., lost the Louisiana primary, ending his bid for re-election.