Parvus Therapeutics Inc.'s PVT-201 has received orphan drug status from the U.S. FDA for the treatment of primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), an autoimmune disease of the liver.
The U.S. FDA approved the PMA application for the Shield test by Guardant Health Inc., a diagnostic for colorectal cancer that avoids some of the issues with alternative diagnostic methods. There are lingering questions about Medicare coverage and physician adoption, however, the answers to which may take a couple of years emerge.
In June 2024, BioWorld covered 221 clinical trial updates, compared to 298 in May. BioWorld recorded 23 phase III trial successes in June, seven failures, and one with mixed results.
As the U.S. FDA and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) move forward with new guidance and foundational data, they both recently issued requests for information (RFIs) to help them advance their agendas.
The U.S. FDA has approved Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.’s Leqselvi (deuruxolitinib), a JAK1 and JAK2 inhibitor for adults with severe alopecia areata, a chronic autoimmune disease. The twice-daily, oral treatment will be targeting a company-estimated market of about 300,000 people in the U.S. This is the third FDA-approved treatment for severe alopecia areata in the past three years.
Emvision Medical Devices Ltd. unveiled a portable brain scanning helmet for first responders to quickly identify whether a patient is experiencing a stroke and, if so, what type.
Actinium Pharmaceuticals Inc. has received FDA clearance of an IND application to study Iomab-ACT for targeted conditioning prior to a bone marrow transplant (BMT) in patients with sickle cell disease.
Viking Therapeutics Inc. is diving more deeply into developing obesity treatments and investors like an accelerated timetable the company has proposed. On June 25, Viking shares (NASDAQ:VKTX) catapulted 28.3% upward to close at $64.68 each.
Even as U.S. lawmakers continue to push back against the rising price of prescription drugs and patients with life-threatening diseases clamor for access to new treatments, the FDA is considering a step that could increase the cost and lengthen the development time of therapies targeting non-small-cell lung cancer and perhaps other solid tumors.
The July 25 meeting of the U.S. FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) could impact the future development of immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as Astrazeneca plc’s Imfinzi, to treat patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) both before and after surgery. Although much of the discussion will focus on an sBLA for Imfinzi (durvalumab), the committee will be asked to vote on whether the FDA should require that new trial design proposals for perioperative regimens for resectable NSCLC include adequate within-trial assessment of the contribution of the treatment phase to efficacy results.