Immunomedics Inc. gained accelerated FDA clearance for Trodelvy (sacituzumab govitecan-hziy) to treat patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) who have undergone at least two prior therapies. It’s the first antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) given the go-ahead specifically in relapsed/refractory TNBC and the first anti-Trop-2 ADC bound for the market. Trodelvy, which was granted breakthrough therapy designation and priority review, moved along faster thanks to the objective response rate (ORR) and duration of response (DoR) turned up by Morris Plains, N.J.-based Immunomedics in a single-arm, multicenter phase II study. Continued approval may be contingent on verifying clinical benefit in the confirmatory phase III experiment called Ascent, recently halted by the independent data safety monitoring committee due to compelling evidence of efficacy across multiple endpoints.

BOGOTA, Colombia – Med-tech companies across Latin America that have traditionally focused on domestic and regional markets are in a race against time to supply ventilators to deal with worsening COVID-19 outbreaks.

BEIJING – After its masks and test kits were said to be sent back by Western countries due to complaints over poor quality, China this week required only NMPA-approved companies export their products and stepped up regulations to ensure quality.

HONG KONG – South Korea’s Osang Healthcare Co. Ltd. became the first Korean company to receive the U.S. FDA’s emergency use authorization (EUA) for its COVID-19 test kit.

The U.S. FDA reported that it has expanded the emergency use authorization for the Labcorp polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test for SARS-CoV-2 to include the company’s Pixel self-collection kit, a development that may presage a wider testing paradigm that is needed to restore the U.S. economy to normalcy.