The U.S. FDA has approved Eicos Sciences Inc.’s Aurlumyn (iloprost) for treating severe frostbite. The injectable vasodilator, which opens blood vessels and stops blood from clotting, is now approved for adults to reduce finger or toe amputations and is, according to the FDA, the first-ever treatment option for severe frostbite. The drug, also referred to as ES-2001, had the FDA’s priority review and orphan drug designations for treating severe frostbite.
The demand for semaglutide, a GLP-1 drug, and other popular prescription weight-loss drugs is adding to the U.S. FDA’s regulatory load as more and more companies are offering unapproved knockoffs of the products directly to consumers. The FDA posted two warning letters Feb. 13 – to Miami-based US Chem Labs and a New-York company, Synthetix Inc. doing business as Helix Chemical Supply – citing the companies for misbranding unapproved semaglutide and tirzepatide, also a GLP-1 drug, by marketing them on the Internet, along with claims about their therapeutic benefits.
One down, eight to go. That’s the scorecard for the constitutional challenges to mandatory Medicare drug price negotiations now that a U.S. federal court has dismissed a suit filed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the National Infusion Center Association and the Global Colon Cancer Association.
The European Commission approved two therapies for progressive, genetic diseases: Biogen Inc.’s Friedreich’s ataxia drug, Skyclarys (omaveloxolone), and Crispr Therapeutics AG’s CRISPR/Cas9 gene therapy for sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia, Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel, exa-cel).
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has released a draft version of patent examiner guidelines to address the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the inventive process, reflecting the standing U.S. position that AI cannot be an inventor.
Less than a month after the U.S. FDA approved Sanofi SA and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s bestseller Dupixent (dupilumab) for treating eosinophilic esophagitis in children ages 1 to 11, the agency has approved Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.’s Eohilia (budesonide oral suspension) for the same indication but for an older group.
Weaving in a loose regulatory end from March 2020 when it deemed nearly 100 NDAs as BLAs, the U.S. FDA released a final rule codifying its current approach to the use of drug master files for those products and their potential biosimilar competition.
The U.S. FDA has released a draft guidance for the use of data monitoring committees (DMCs) for clinical trials for devices and drugs, which would overwrite a similar guidance from 2006. This new draft guidance explicitly states that clinical studies more commonly employ DMCs than was the case 18 years ago and would seem to suggest that the agency will more routinely require the use of DMCs than was common practice in the past.
The Feb. 8 U.S. drug pricing hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee started out as a spectacle in which Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) rehashed his usual talking points as he lectured the CEOs of Bristol Myers Squibb Co., Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co. Inc. about how their companies charge so much more for their drugs in the U.S. than in other countries. But despite the show-trial aspects of the hearing, or what Ranking Member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) called Sanders’ ongoing “CEO-whack-a-mole” agenda, some facts came through that could lead to pricing reforms if Congress has the bipartisan will to do so.
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