Within the first few minutes of a key opinion leader webinar on Alzheimer's disease sponsored by AC Immune SA, CEO Andrea Pfeifer brought up the decision by Biogen Inc. to file for regulatory approval of amyloid beta targeter aducanumab in early AD, based on results from a subset of patients in the phase III study called Engage.
Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc. CEO Jack Khattar said the phase III failure in the study called P301 with SPN-810 (molindone hydrochloride) was "very puzzling" to the Rockville, Md.-based firm, which will be "digging very deep into the data" with hopes of figuring out what went wrong. Shares (NASDAQ:SUPN) closed Wednesday at $19.93, down $9.20, or 31.6%.
Redhill Biopharma Ltd. CEO Dror Ben-Asher told BioWorld that the 2 million patients targeted by just-approved, delayed-release Talicia, previously known as RHB-105, for adult infection by Helicobacter pylori represents "the baseline where we start our promotion," and there's an opportunity to help many more patients. "When you combine the high prevalence of roughly 100 million Americans infected and more than half of the world's population with the association with gastric cancer, it's a major public health concern," he said. About 800,000 people worldwide die every year from gastric cancer, and about 90% of cases are caused by H. pylori.
San Diego-based Otonomy Inc.'s launch of the phase I/II trial for OTO-413, a sustained-exposure formulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), in patients with hearing loss brought renewed investor attention to the company, consigned to the back burner after a late-stage failure.
RNAi specialist Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s chief operating officer, James Weissman, told BioWorld that scientists inside and outside of the company have come to believe in what's called "the X hypothesis" in hepatitis B virus (HBV). "My view, though, as a person who has been in the pharmaceutical industry for decades, is who cares, anyway?" he said – as long as the drug works. He pointed out that, with the cholesterol therapy Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) from New York-based Pfizer Inc., where he served in business development and marketing, "everybody had a different theory for why it lowered the incidence of heart disease. Nobody knew with certainty."
Pandion Therapeutics Inc.'s deal with Astellas Pharma Inc. brings as much as $45 million in up-front money and payments related to research and preclinical activities, with potentially more than $750 million in development and commercial milestone rewards to come, plus royalties if products reach the market.
Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc. disclosed positive results from the first interim analysis of its ongoing NAV3-31 phase IIb study. Analysis shows the data support Navidea's hypothesis that Tc 99m tilmanocept imaging can provide robust, quantitative imaging in healthy controls and in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
An already validated approach with Navidea Biopharmaceuticals Inc.'s radioimaging agent for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) might have presaged the victory, but that didn't stop Wall Street from rewarding the shares handsomely, and the stock (NYSE:NAVB) closed Tuesday at $1.10, up 32 cents or almost 41.5%, having traded as high as $1.36.
As TG Therapeutics Inc.'s phase IIb win in the follicular lymphoma (FL) cohort of the Unity-NHL pivotal experiment testing umbralisib charmed Wall Street, CEO Michael Weiss told investors that the New York-based company is "completely committed to getting our marginal zone lymphoma [MZL] filing in on time and getting to the market" soon. Nobody's forgetting about the opportunity in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), either.
With Stifel analysts recently setting a $41 price target for Urogen Pharma Ltd. and interim data in hand from the trial in bladder cancer with UGN-102, hopes are high that the drug's approach – having already proved its mettle in UGN-101 against low-grade upper tract urothelial cancer (UTUC) – will yield durable results. Shares (NASDAQ:URGN) have been trading at around $22, closing Friday at $21.97.
