Kintor Pharmaceutical Ltd. said its androgen receptor (AR) antagonist, proxalutamide, reduced mortality risk by 92% and shortened median hospital length stay by nine days vs. standard of care, based on a preliminary analysis of phase III data from 590 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Brazil. The company expects to have final data ready by the end of this month or early April, Chief Financial Officer Lucy Lu told BioWorld.
Remegen Co. Ltd.’s RC-18 (telitacicept) was granted conditional approval for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), marking the first NDA approval for the company that launched the world’s biggest biotech IPO last year. A self-developed dual targeted TACI-Fc fusion protein, telitacicept is the second innovative biologic to treat SLE approved in China.
In the “The World for Asia, Asia for the World” panel discussion at the virtual Wuxi Healthcare Forum, investors and executives took note of the region’s digital capabilities for reducing R&D costs and timelines, while also calling for more harmonization on the regulatory front to empower R&D in Asia.
Regulatory snapshots, including drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations in Asia-Pacific, including: Affibody, Alphamab, Astellas, Eisai, Eli Lilly, Huya, Inmagene, Johnson & Johnson, Melior, Pharmaessentia, RDIF, Takeda.
As the World Trade Organization (WTO) debate intensified this week over a demand to waive patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, the group’s new director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, urged members to “walk and chew gum” at the same time by working with “companies to open up and license more viable manufacturing sites now in emerging markets and developing countries. We must get them to work with us on know-how and technology transfer now.”
From the time it paused inspections of drug manufacturing sites a year ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA conducted only three foreign “mission-critical” inspections in fiscal 2020. Those were in Canada, Germany and India, according to a new U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
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