Six weeks ahead of its PDUFA date, Kadmon Holdings Inc.’s NDA for Rezurock (belumosudil) has been approved to treat chronic graft-vs.-host disease. The selective oral inhibitor of Rho-associated coiled-coil kinase 2, a daily treatment for patients 12 and older after failure of at least two prior lines of systemic therapy, is the New York-based company’s first approved therapy. Read More
Cytokinetics Inc. CEO Robert Blum declined to remark upon what one analyst called “the elephant in the room” as the company popped the lid off positive top-line data from the first and second cohorts of the phase II study with CK-3773274 (known by the shorthand CK-274) in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). Read More
Regardless of the controversy swirling around the FDA’s accelerated approval of Biogen Inc.’s Alzheimer’s drug, Aduhelm, that U.S. approval is expected to open the door to more opportunities for Alzheimer’s treatments and diagnostics. Read More
Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co. Ltd. reported positive interim data from its phase III trial for SHR-3680, an androgen receptor antagonist, demonstrating that it reduced the risk of disease progression or death in metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer patients with high-volume disease burden. Read More
French biotech Pep-Therapy SAS is taking its potentially first-in-class cancer cell penetrating peptide technology into the clinic, after raising €5.4 million (US$6.4 million) in an extended series A funding round. The series A fundraiser initially brought in €2.6 million, but the extension brought in a further €1.6 million in equity from Anaxago, i&i Prague and Badge as well as a €1 million loan from Bpifrance. Read More
Apotex Corp. agreed to pay $26 million to the state of Texas to resolve claims that it had reported inflated drug prices to the Texas Medicaid program. Read More
New hires and promotions in the biopharma industry, including: Aerovate, Arena, Arsenalbio, Medexus, Passage, Pluristem, Prelude, Renovacor, Sigilon. Read More
Clinical updates, including trial initiations, enrollment status and data readouts and publications: Alexion, BMS, Corvus, GSK, Innovent, Merck, Mesoblast, Orexo. Read More
Regulatory snapshots, including global drug submissions and approvals, clinical trial approvals and other regulatory decisions and designations: Abbvie, Astellas, Eli Lilly, Fibrogen, Hutchmed, Kintor. Read More
