The struggle to avoid a partial U.S. government shutdown at midnight Sept. 30 is getting a lot of attention, as the stakes increase every day of the political standoff. Meanwhile, Sept. 30 also could be the end of the 43-year-old Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which has been a funding boon for biotech and med-tech startups, if Congress can’t come together on a reauthorization bill.
Word Sept. 4 from Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. that the U.S. FDA extended the PDUFA date for the sNDA related to Pyrukynd (mitapivat), after the Cambridge, Mass.-based firm submitted a proposed risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS), drew Wall Street’s attention to the regulatory approach.
The first new U.S. FDA-approved therapeutic option for PTSD in more than 20 years will have to wait. A supplemental NDA seeking approval of Rexulti (brexpiprazole) combined with sertraline, filed by one of Japan’s biggest pharmas, Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., received a complete response letter (CRL) from the agency.
Breaking with its long-held, oft-recited mantra that observational studies are great for generating hypotheses but not as evidence for approval, the U.S. FDA is initiating the approval of leucovorin calcium tablets for patients with cerebral folate deficiency, a neurological condition that affects folate transfer into the brain.
A failed July inspection of manufacturer Catalent Indiana LLC has delayed another U.S. FDA approval, the latest being that of Scholar Rock Inc.’s selective anti-latent myostatin antibody, apitegromab, which was expected to become the first therapy to enhance skeletal muscle in patients with spinal muscular atrophy.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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