Fourteen months after refusing to file Zogenix’s first application, the FDA has approved the California biotech’s lead drug for a rare form of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome. It will be branded as Fintepla.

The company said Friday they will charge on average $96,000 for the drug — or about 3 times what GW Pharma, their main competitor, charges for their Dravet syndrome drug.

Investors have been anticipating a competition between Zogenix and GW Pharma for years. In 2018, GW won a landmark FDA approval for the first cannabinoid drug. Called Epidiolex, it had been shown in late-stage trials to reduce seizures by around 40% and represented the first approved drug for the 15,000 to 20,000 Americans with Dravet syndrome, each of whom can experience dozens of seizure per month.

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GSK has a new slate of data to offer on its PD-1 inhibitor, Jemperli — data that the pharma giant hopes will cement one of the four drug approvals it’s expecting this year.

While Jemperli (dostarlimab) is already approved for a subset of patients with second-line endometrial cancer, GSK set out in the Phase III RUBY trial to test it as an earlier line of treatment while also enrolling a broader group of patients. In an interim analysis, Jemperli was shown to extend progression-free survival for both the subset and the overall trial population when added to chemotherapy.

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Esperion is suing its business partner Daiichi Sankyo, saying the Japanese drugmaker is improperly refusing to pay a $300 million milestone that the biotech company will be owed after reporting positive data from a large trial of its cardiovascular drug Nexletol.

The 2019 deal between the companies had Daiichi Sankyo pay $150 million upfront plus another $150 million after the first sales of the drug. But another major payout was tied to an outcomes study reported this month, known as CLEAR. Esperion, in its suit against Daiichi, argues that the drug’s more than 20% reduction of heart attack risk is enough to trigger a $300 million payout from Daiichi once it’s added to the drug’s label.

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BioNTech is estimating €5 billion (nearly $5.4 billion) in Covid-19 vaccine sales this year, a marked drop from €17.1 billion ($18.5 billion) in 2022 — and way off analysts’ expectations of around €8 billion ($8.6 billion).

In BioNTech’s year-end earnings call on Monday, it reported a total of €17.3 billion ($18.7 billion) in 2022 revenue, almost all from vaccine sales, which include those via its Pfizer deal and direct sales.

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