Last year, after Merck & Co. Inc. "put this stake in the ground" to establish the importance of the retinoic acid-induced gene I (RIG-I) pathway by acquiring Rigontec GmbH, other pharma firms sat up and took notice, said Kristin Bedard, chief scientific officer of Kineta Inc.
Clarivate Analytics Chief Scientific Officer Richard Harrison told BioWorld Asia that the record number of would-be blockbusters in the firm's "Drugs to Watch" report for 2018 signals that "changes the industry made 10 years ago are really starting to pay off."
The surprise blowup of Protagonist Therapeutics Inc.'s PTG-100 for ulcerative colitis (UC) raised questions not only about the drug but also about the platform from which it emerged, with Stifel analyst Adam Walsh most pointedly interrogating company officials during a conference call to discuss the data.
Handling the anxiety of patients about cancer risks with biologics for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) on the one hand while battling miserly insurance companies on the other: such is the life of a gastroenterologist, said Scott Becker, in practice for 28 years.
Clarivate Analytics Chief Scientific Officer Richard Harrison told BioWorld that the record number of would-be blockbusters in the firm's "Drugs to Watch" report for 2018 signals that "changes the industry made 10 years ago are really starting to pay off."
Although Jefferies analyst Michael Yee noted that the "market is somewhat skeptical" of neurodegenerative disease research at the moment, Prothena Corp. plc CEO Gene Kinney told BioWorld that he expects there will be more, not fewer, of the deals like the potential $2.2 billion pact that his firm struck with Celgene Corp. "We're seeing a high level of interest in the space right now," he said, a contrast from the slacking caused years ago by some well-publicized blowups.
To say whether U.S. regulators will require heart monitoring after the first dose of Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s etrasimod for ulcerative colitis (UC) would be "prognosticating a bit in terms of what the FDA is going to choose to do," said Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Preston Klassen, who refused such guesswork.
Given the timing of the company's earnings call last week, investors might have expected phase II data with etrasimod in ulcerative colitis (UC) from Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc., but eagerly awaited results from the 157-patient phase experiment testing the oral sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulator will not roll out until later this month.
As PDUFA dates near for the antisense drug inotersen and a competing therapy in hereditary transthyretin amyloidosis, or hATTR, Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s potential $1.7 billion deal with spinout Akcea Therapeutics Inc.was designed to prepare for launch, but not everybody was impressed – at first, anyway.
The surprise thumbs-down recently by the FDA for Celgene Corp.'s ozanimod to treat relapsing multiple sclerosis (MS) echoed the disappointment last year with mongersen (GED-0301) for Crohn's disease (CD), but apparently didn't affect late-stage work with the former compound in ulcerative colitis (UC) and CD.
