The EMA recommended the highest number of approvals in the last 15 years in 2024, giving the nod to 114 drugs. That is amongst the highest number in the 30 years of the agency’s existence, said Steffen Thirstrup, the EMA’s chief medical officer.
Atara Biotherapeutics Inc. received a complete response letter (CRL) from the U.S. FDA for its lead product, Ebvallo (tabelecleucel), a breakthrough therapy for Epstein-Barr virus positive post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease that is already approved in the EU, the U.K. and Switzerland.
Axcynsis Therapeutics Pte Ltd. has gained IND clearance from the FDA for AT03-65 for the treatment of patients with CLDN6-positive solid tumors. Axcynsis is planning to initiate a phase I trial in the U.S. during the current quarter in patients with advanced CLDN6-positive solid tumors.
China is deepening its regulatory reforms of drugs and devices to foster a globally competitive innovation ecosystem to transform China from a major pharmaceutical manufacturer into a global pharmaceutical powerhouse.
As more Asia biotechs turn to regenerative medicine to address disorders without a cure, Medipost Inc. is continuing global expansion with Cartistem, its allogeneic human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cell product that gained clearance in South Korea in 2012 to treat knee osteoarthritis.
The U.S. FDA needs to strengthen the guardrails along the accelerated approval pathway to ensure its “appropriate and consistent use,” the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a report released Jan. 14.
The U.S. FDA is to temper the alert it put out in November 2023 pointing to a potential risk of CAR T therapies causing de novo malignancies. “There was this issue of possible safety concerns with T-cell lymphomas, with these CAR T cells. I think this year, we are feeling reassured in this regard,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), told the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine briefing at the J. P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Jan. 13.
The Medicare coverage story of the Cardiomems device has a Homeric air about it, spanning nearly a decade starting with an adverse local coverage determination in 2016. Abbott Park, Ill.-based Abbott Laboratories finally brought the story full circle with a successful national coverage determination that gives the device nationwide coverage for Medicare patients without the need to wrangle with Medicare administrative contractors.
Med-tech firms have gnashed their teeth for decades over the use of the term “recall,” given that some recalls are mere corrections to product labels while others entail a full product withdrawal. The U.S. FDA recently provided a glossary of terms under the heading of recall – a move that comes short of industry’s preference that the term be jettisoned altogether.
Pheno Therapeutics Ltd. has received clinical trial authorization (CTA) from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for its lead candidate, PTD-802. The program will progress to a first-in-human phase I trial.
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