From the beginning of the monkeypox outbreak in the U.S. in May, the federal government has bungled the response, according to both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.
Akouos Inc. has received IND clearance from the FDA to initiate a first-in-human phase I/II pediatric trial of AK-OTOF, a gene therapy intended for the treatment of patients with otoferlin gene (OTOF)-mediated hearing loss.
Transcenta Holding Ltd. has received IND clearance from the FDA for TST-003, its first-in-class, high-affinity, humanized monoclonal antibody targeting gremlin-1.
Pricing new drugs for the U.S. market, especially those treating rare diseases, is getting a lot more complex now that the Medicare inflation rebate is in play. The rebate provision in the newly enacted Inflation Reduction Act incentivizes companies to set higher launch prices for drugs that will be used by Medicare beneficiaries since their future price increases will be limited to the rate of inflation. Although some of the other drug pricing measures included in the new law won’t kick in for a few years, the Medicare inflation rebate is to become effective next year.
More than four years after Right to Try legislation was enacted in the U.S., the FDA is issuing a final rule, Annual Summary Reporting Requirements Under the Right to Try Act, specifying the deadline and content for the annual reports the law requires participating drug sponsors or manufacturers to submit.
Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) dodged a black-box warning on the label of just-approved Sotyktu (deucravacitinib), but hurdles lie ahead for the first-in-class, oral, allosteric tyrosine kinase 2 inhibitor. Designed to treat adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy, Sotyktu is priced as $75,000 per year, and will become available during September, BMS said.
Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. celebrated a long-awaited win with the U.S. FDA’s approval late Sept. 9 of novel G-CSF drug eflapegrastim, cleared for use in chemotherapy-induced neutropenia nearly four years after the company first filed for regulatory approval. Despite moves this year to reduce its cash burn, Spectrum has ready to go a commercial team expected to sell eflapegrastim as well as cancer drug poziotinib, which is under FDA review with a PDUFA date of Nov. 24, 2022.
What a difference a U.S. FDA advisory committee meeting can make. In the wake of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee voting 7-2 Sept. 7 to recommend approval of Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) candidate, shares of the Cambridge, Mass.-based company (NASDAQ:AMLX) more than regained the value they lost in March when the same committee voted against approval of AMX-0035.
The U.S. FDA’s approval of Revance Therapeutics Inc.’s Daxxify (daxibotulinumtoxinA-lanm) for the temporary improvement of moderate to severe glabellar lines, or frown lines, in adults, positioned the drug to compete with Abbvie Inc.’s blockbuster, Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA), which tallied $678 million in global net revenues for the second quarter of 2022.
The FDA has granted orphan drug designation to Iecure Inc.'s lead product candidate GTP-506, an investigational product for the treatment of ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency.