Months ago, Pfiz­er made a grim an­nounce­ment that it would stop man­u­fac­tur­ing phos­pho­line io­dide, its decades-old “mir­a­cle drug” for a rare form of glau­co­ma. The phar­ma said its in­ven­to­ry would run dry by May 2021, leav­ing some pa­tients with few op­tions short of surgery.

But af­ter snag­ging the rights and the rest of Pfiz­er’s sup­ply, a small New York biotech is look­ing to give phos­pho­line io­dide new life.

Pfiz­er is hand­ing over the drug’s NDA and trade­mark to Fera Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, a Lo­cust Val­ley, New York-based com­pa­ny run by for­mer San­doz US CEO Frank Del­laFera, the phar­ma said in a state­ment on Mon­day.

While Fera de­clined a re­quest for com­ment, Del­laFera shared this gen­er­al state­ment re­gard­ing the com­pa­ny’s vi­sion on its web­site: “Our goal is sim­ple — to keep more qual­i­ty health­care choic­es alive for the peo­ple who need them.”

Phos­pho­line io­dide was ap­proved back in 1960, and un­til re­cent­ly was man­u­fac­tured by Pfiz­er to treat apha­kic glau­co­ma, a rare con­di­tion that can oc­cur af­ter cataract surgery. The dis­ease is as­so­ci­at­ed with poor con­trol of in­traoc­u­lar pres­sure, and fail­ure to low­er that pres­sure can re­sult in blind­ness. With­out med­ica­tion to do so, some pa­tients must re­sort to surgery.

“For the few pa­tients I have on it, noth­ing but surgery could re­place it,” one cataract and glau­co­ma sur­geon post­ed on Twit­ter back in May.

Just saw a pa­tient who would be blind if not for phos­pho­line io­dide – which is be­ing dis­con­tin­ued due to low vol­ume of sales. I won­der if it will come back as an or­phan drug for apha­kic glau­co­ma? For the few pa­tients I have on it, noth­ing but surgery could re­place it.

— Nathan Rad­cliffe (@n8rad­cliffe) May 20, 2021

Pfiz­er cit­ed sup­ply chain is­sues and a de­cline in pa­tient use as the rea­son why it de­cid­ed to stop mak­ing phos­pho­line io­dide. The com­plex sup­ply chain has be­come in­creas­ing­ly un­sta­ble over the years, the com­pa­ny said, adding that about 100 pa­tients use the drug cur­rent­ly in the US.

Last month, the FDA agreed to ex­tend the drug’s ap­proved shelf life from 24 to 36 months, adding an ad­di­tion­al year to the la­bel to ad­dress short-term short­ages. And ac­cord­ing to Pfiz­er, Fera has “the ca­pa­bil­i­ties, ex­pe­ri­ence, and mo­ti­va­tion to bring P.I. to pa­tients on a sus­tain­able and ex­pe­dit­ed ba­sis.”

Both Pfiz­er and Fera de­clined to com­ment on the fi­nan­cial terms of the deal. Some wor­ry the new own­er­ship could lead to price hikes for the drug, which cur­rent­ly costs around $100 per 5ml, ac­cord­ing to drugs.com.

Pfiz­er says it will pro­vide con­sul­ta­tion ser­vices to Fera, though it’s un­clear what the com­pa­ny’s plans are go­ing forth — or if it will be able to avoid the same man­u­fac­tur­ing is­sues that haunt­ed Pfiz­er.

So­cial cred­it: AP Im­ages

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