South Korea is rolling out regulatory changes to speed biosimilar development, including reforms to shorten review timelines, ease phase III trial requirements and simplify oversight of manufacturing changes.
Don’t like a court order? Sidestep it. That seems to be the idea behind U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy’s latest changes to his renewal of the charter for the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
Do state laws requiring drug companies to give steep 340B drug discounts to an unlimited number of contract pharmacies, with no claims data required, interfere with a longstanding contract between the U.S. Congress and biopharma? Or do such laws merely flex states’ authority over pharmacy practices such as delivery?
After nearly a year of threats and promises of a global biopharma tariff of 25% to 500%, U.S. President Donald Trump finally delivered it. In the name of national security, he imposed a 100% sector tariff on prescription drugs and their associated ingredients beginning in about four months for large manufacturers and six months for smaller companies. However, depending on the drug, where it’s made and whether a manufacturer has reached onshoring and pricing agreements with the Department of Health and Human Services, the actual tariff could be as low as 0%.
Chiesi Group’s idebenone faced a regulatory setback last month after the U.S. FDA issued a complete response letter (CRL) to the company’s NDA for Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), a rare inherited disorder that causes sudden vision loss.But a chance missed for Chiesi may be an opportunity for gene therapies, including Gensight Biologics SA’s lenadogene nolparvovec (Lumevoq; GS-010).
The EMA has given initial endorsement to a new approach to early toxicity testing in which live animals will be replaced by virtual counterparts. The virtual control groups will be derived from data generated in animals that have been used as controls in previous studies. The historical database has been brought together in an EU-funded project to which 20 pharma and crop sciences companies contributed. While limited in scope, this is the first time the EMA has formally endorsed the use of a new approach methodology (NAM) to generate data that could eventually be included in an application for marketing approval.
On top of prison sentences, loss of assets and a $2.6 million restitution order issued several years ago, Li Chen and Yu Zhou had their naturalized U.S. citizenship revoked March 30 as a consequence of stealing exosome-related trade secrets from Nationwide Children's Hospital's Research Institute in Ohio – the hospital that had sponsored them when they first came to the U.S. from China on H-1B Specialty Occupation visas.
Wegovy (semaglutide) has passed the notoriously strict cost-effectiveness scrutiny of the U.K. health technology assessment body and will now be reimbursed for the prevention of further serious cardiovascular events in people who have had a heart attack or stroke, or are diagnosed with peripheral arterial disease.
Once again, Amgen Inc.’s Tavneos (avacopan) is under U.S. FDA scrutiny, as the agency alerted patients and doctors March 31 about 76 cases of drug-induced liver injury, including eight deaths, with “reasonable evidence of a causal association” with the drug.
Eli Lilly and Co. anticipates shipping newly approved Foundayo (orforglipron) within the next week, as the drug becomes the second oral weight-loss glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist to enter the U.S. market following December’s approval of Novo Nordisk A/S’ Wegovy (semaglutide) pill.
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