Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s apomorphine sublingual film (APL-130277), a dopamine agonist the company will market as Kynmobi, has won FDA approval for the acute intermittent treatment of motor fluctuations (off episodes) associated with Parkinson’s disease.
Just days after Clovis Oncology Inc.'s Rubraca (rucaparib) became the first PARP inhibitor approved by the FDA to treat certain cases of metastatic prostate cancer (mCPRC) in third-line care, the agency granted an even broader label in the indication to its first-in-class competitor, Lynparza (olaparib). Endorsement of second-line use of Lynparza in mCPRC and an overall survival (OS) benefit listed in its updated label will help rapidly establish it as "the drug of choice in the [second] line, leaving little commercial opportunities for Rubraca downstream," SVB Leerink analyst Andrew Berens said.
Women, black and Hispanic/Latinx participants were underrepresented in pivotal clinical trials for drugs approved from 2007 to 2017, according to a new report by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. In the pivotal clinical trials, 44.9% of patients were women. Participants who identified as black or of African descent were the most underrepresented participant group, representing 5.4% of participants in clinical trials.
Only hours after Blueprint Medicines Corp. disclosed an FDA complete response letter for avapritinib in fourth-line gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), Deciphera Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s kinase inhibitor, ripretinib, won the agency’s approval for the same indication, well ahead of its Aug. 13 PDUFA date.
The May 12 Senate hearing regarding the COVID-19 pandemic included the usual conversations about contact tracing, but Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that one of the vaccines currently in trial in the U.S. will work, but that it is unlikely a vaccine will be ready by September 2020. In contrast, Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir said testing capacity may reach 50 million tests per month by that time, thanks in part to the fact that antigen testing is now part of the FDA’s emergency use authorization mechanism.
Three biopharma drugs are up for FDA approval this week, including one new chemical entity, dasotraline, from Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. to treat binge eating disorder, and two other candidates that are part of supplemental filings for expanded indications.
About 15 months after closing its multibillion-dollar acquisition of Loxo Oncology Inc., Eli Lilly and Co. has secured an accelerated FDA approval for the first of the deal's headline assets, the RET kinase inhibitor selpercatinib, now branded as Retevmo.
Novartis AG won accelerated FDA clearance for Tabrecta (capmatinib, formerly INC-280), an oral MET inhibitor, for adult patients with metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have a mutation that leads to MET exon 14 skipping (METex14) as detected by a companion diagnostic, also given the green light.
With new a FDA approval for a years-old type 2 diabetes drug, Astrazeneca plc's Farxiga (dapagliflozin) has become the first sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor to be approved to reduce the risk of cardiovascular (CV) death and hospitalization for heart failure patients with reduced ejection fraction, a measure of how much blood the left ventricle pumps out with each contraction.
Citing "known and potential benefits" of using Gilead Sciences Inc.'s remdesivir for the treatment of COVID-19 that "outweigh the known and potential risks of the drug's use," the FDA has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the antiviral, currently in limited supply, according to the company. Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day, who said the company is working with partners across the globe to ramp up supply, said his team is working with "urgency and responsibility" to meet global needs for the medicine.
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