Criticisms over the U.S. FDA’s use of advisory committees led the agency to hold a June 13 public hearing during which FDA commissioner Bob Califf said the agency is working to improve the experience of special government employees who take part in these hearings.
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the FDA’s relaxed regulation of the abortion drug mifepristone when it ruled June 13 that the organizations challenging those changes lacked the standing to do so.
Shares of Avidity Biosciences Inc. hit a 52-week high on reports of promising data from the first efficacy cohort of its phase I/II Fortitude study testing delpacibart braxlosiran (del-brax) in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), including impressive biomarker results that could indicate a path for potential accelerated approval.
Just as it is for terminally ill cancer patients, time is of the essence for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the clinical meaningfulness of Eli Lilly and Co.’s donanemab is the time it gives patients before the disease progresses, Reisa Sperling, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the U.S. FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee June 10.
Acepodia Inc.’s antibody cell conjugation platform could change the way CAR T-cell therapies are manufactured, clearing the way for an off-the-shelf model to treat numerous cancers that is safer and cheaper than current CAR Ts, Acepodia CEO Sonny Hsiao told BioWorld.
Ipsen SA picked up U.S. FDA accelerated approval for its Genfit SA-licensed elafibranor, making it the first new drug in eight years for treating primary biliary cholangitis, though a potential competitor lurks just around the corner.
Moderna Inc. is gearing up to meet with regulators on the next steps for mRNA-1083, the first combination vaccine for influenza and COVID-19 to succeed in phase III testing, not only demonstrating noninferiority to individually licensed competitor vaccines but also eliciting statistically significant higher immune responses.
For the U.S. FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee, the medical need and the effectiveness of Eli Lilly and Co.’s Alzheimer’s candidate, donanemab, outweighs the safety concerns and lack of data for underrepresented groups and special needs patients. The panel voted unanimously, 11-0, June 10 that the available data show donanemab is effective in treating Alzheimer’s in the population enrolled in Lilly’s clinical trials and that the benefits of the amyloid-targeting monoclonal antibody outweigh the risks in the study population of patients with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia.
Geron Corp., a company founded more than three decades ago, is finally celebrating its first U.S. FDA approval. The agency cleared imetelstat, branded Rytelo, for use in transfusion-dependent anemia in adults with low- to intermediate-risk myelodysplastic syndromes, specifically those requiring four or more red blood cell units over eight weeks who have failed or no longer respond to erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESA) or who are not eligible for ESA treatment.
The U.S. FDA clamped a full clinical hold Biomea Fusion Inc.‘s phase I/II study of BMF-219 for treating type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. The hold sank the stock on June 7 as the company looked to find answers so it could sit down with the agency to discuss next steps.
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