Af­ter a makeover and hir­ing spree, Chi­na's drug agency is romp­ing and stomp­ing on new re­views and ap­provals

When it comes to the re­forms at Chi­na’s drug agency, now un­der­go­ing a name change, pol­i­cy changes and even their out­comes are rel­a­tive­ly easy to spot, but num­bers are hard­er to come by. In a year­ly re­port re­leased last week, though, the agency of­fered some rare sta­tis­tics to track its progress over the past few years and il­lu­mi­nate R&D pri­or­i­ties in the coun­try.

The re­port high­lights some big trends that have ma­jor im­pli­ca­tions for all com­pa­nies look­ing to land a mar­ket­ing OK and roll out new drugs in the boom­ing Asian mar­ket. Af­ter beef­ing up the num­ber of reg­u­la­tors on staff, Chi­na’s FDA slashed re­view times to a frac­tion of what they had been. There’s been a con­tin­ued de­cline in the over­all num­ber of back­logged ap­pli­ca­tion, thanks to in­creased speed at the agency. In drug INDs alone, the Cen­ter for Drug Eval­u­a­tion han­dled 542 ap­pli­ca­tions and ap­proved 481 of them — among those, 399 cas­es (shared by 170 drugs) were for nov­el drugs.

On­col­o­gy and di­ges­tive drugs dom­i­nat­ed the group of nov­el drug INDs ap­proved last year. In bi­o­log­ics, on­col­o­gy al­so takes up the biggest chunk of INDs, with hema­tol­ogy emerg­ing as the run­ner-up.

Each IND took an av­er­age of 120 work­ing days to eval­u­ate, 1.09 times the pe­ri­od re­quired by law — a dras­tic im­prove­ment from, say, 2012, when records show that al­most half of the ap­pli­ca­tions would take longer than 400 days to process.

Ag­gres­sive hir­ing of new staff was like­ly a key fac­tor to speed­ing up the reg­u­la­to­ry op­er­a­tion. With new units spe­cial­iz­ing in clin­i­cal test­ing and da­ta man­age­ment, the CF­DA made 223 new hires, in­clud­ing two “chief sci­en­tists.”

The CDE al­so ramped up the pri­or­i­ty re­view sys­tem, which was launched in 2016. By their count, first rounds for INDs, NDAs and AN­DAs took an av­er­age of 39, 59 and 81 work­ing days once they were ac­cept­ed for pri­or­i­ty re­view.

By the end of 2017, 423 ap­pli­ca­tions of all sorts were in­clud­ed for pri­or­i­ty re­view, with 45% of that be­ing new drugs with clear clin­i­cal ben­e­fit (oth­er com­mon rea­sons in­clud­ed si­mul­ta­ne­ous ap­pli­ca­tion in the US/EU and first copy­cat). Rare dis­ease drugs took up 5% of the cas­es.

The CDE’s 110 pri­or­i­ty re­view ap­provals trans­lat­ed to 57 drugs, and 50 of those were ap­proved in 2017. Over­seas phar­mas won big: Re­gen­eron’s Eylea, Ab­b­Vie’ Hu­mi­ra, In­cyte’s Jakafi and Cel­gene’s Vi­daza (to be mar­ket­ed by part­ner BeiGene) were among those ap­proved through the pri­or­i­ty re­view track.

Giv­en the gov­ern­ment re­vamp an­nounced weeks ago, this would be the last re­port is­sued by a stand­alone CF­DA. But chang­ing its name to Chi­na Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion and go­ing un­der the purview of an um­brel­la mar­ket su­per­vi­sion agency like­ly won’t stop the reg­u­la­tors from build­ing an even more ag­gres­sive sys­tem.

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Alaa Halawaa, executive director at Mubadala’s US venture group

The ven­ture crew at Mubadala are up­ping their biotech cre­ation game, tak­ing care­ful aim at a new fron­tier in drug de­vel­op­ment

It started with a cup of coffee and a slow burning desire to go early and long in the biotech creation business.

Wrapping up a 15-year discovery stint at Genentech back in the summer of 2021, Rami Hannoush was treated to a caffeine-fueled review of the latest work UCSF’s Jim Wells had been doing on protein degradation — one of the hottest fields in drug development.

“Jim and I have known each other for the past 15 years through Genentech collaborations. We met over coffee, and he was telling me about this concept of the company that he was thinking of,” says Hannoush. “And I got immediately intrigued by it because I knew that this could open up a big space in terms of adding a new modality in drug discovery that is desperately needed in pharma.”

Endpoints Premium

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.

Rohan Palekar, 89bio CEO

89bio’s PhII da­ta add to quick suc­ces­sion of NASH read­outs as field seeks turn­around

89bio said its drug was better than placebo at lessening fibrosis without worsening nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, in two of three dose groups.

The San Francisco biotech said it thinks the Phase IIb data pave the way for a potential Phase III, following in the footsteps of another biotech in its drug class, Akero Therapeutics. To fund a late-stage study, CEO Rohan Palekar told Endpoints News 89bio “would need to raise additional capital,” with the company having about $188 million at the end of last year.

Flare Therapeutics biochemists Yong Li (L) and Valerie Vivat

A $123M Flare will get Third Rock on­col­o­gy biotech in­to the clin­ic this year

Flare Therapeutics will start its first human trial this year with an investigational urothelial cancer drug after pulling together a $123 million Series B from Big Pharmas, VCs and its incubator, Third Rock Ventures.

Launched in 2021 on the idea that a biotech could finally succeed at drugging the much-sought-after but stubborn transcription factor, Flare Therapeutics said Wednesday it is now primed for the clinic after closing its large financing haul earlier this year. The raise is a relatively stark figure in a tough startup financing environment but further buoys the upbeat signals coming out of other Third Rock biotechs in recent weeks, including the $200 million CARGO Therapeutics and $100 million Rapport Therapeutics rounds.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,300+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Francesco Marincola, newly-appointed Sonata Therapeutics CSO

Kite's head of re­search leaves for Flag­ship start­up Sonata

Another leader is departing Kite Pharma, and will to spend the “last part” of his career exploring how cancer evades the immune system.

Kite’s senior VP and global head of cell therapy research Francesco Marincola left the Gilead CAR-T unit last week for Sonata Therapeutics. Flagship last May unveiled the startup, which was pieced together from two fledgling biotechs Inzen and Cygnal Therapeutics. As CSO, Marincola will lead Sonata’s push to reprogram cancer cells to make them more immunogenic.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,300+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA in­di­cates will­ing­ness to ap­prove Bio­gen ALS drug de­spite failed PhI­II study

Ahead of Wednesday’s advisory committee hearing to discuss Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen, the FDA appeared open to approving the drug, newly released briefing documents show.

Citing the need for flexibility in a devastating disease like ALS, regulators signaled a willingness to consider greenlighting tofersen based on its effect on a certain protein associated with ALS despite a failed pivotal trial. The documents come after regulatory flexibility was part of the same rationale the agency expressed when approving an ALS drug last September from Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, indicating the FDA’s openness to approving new treatments for the disease.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,300+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

NIH re­jects an­oth­er at­tempt to 'march-in' on Astel­las' prostate can­cer drug over ex­ces­sive price

The National Institutes of Health has again declined to use so-called “march-in” rights to lower the price of Astellas and Pfizer’s prostate cancer drug Xtandi despite being invented at UCLA with grants from the US Army and NIH.

“Given the remaining patent life and the lengthy administrative process involved for a march-in proceeding, NIH does not believe that use of the march-in authority would be an effective means of lowering the price of the drug,” NIH told prostate cancer patients Robert Sachs and Clare Love, in a letter shared with Endpoints News. The institutes’ analyses found Xtandi “to be widely available to the public,” an indication that there was not a pressing need for the US to act.

No­vo Nordisk re­mains un­der UK scruti­ny as MHRA con­ducts its own re­view in 'in­cred­i­bly rare' case

The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is now reviewing Novo Nordisk’s marketing violation that resulted in its loss of UK trade group membership last week. Novo Nordisk was suspended on Thursday from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) for two years after an investigation by its regulatory arm found the pharma broke its conduct rules.

MHRA said on Tuesday that its review of the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) investigation is standard practice. An MHRA spokesperson emphasized in an email to Endpoints News that the situation with Novo Nordisk is “incredibly rare” while also noting ABPI took “swift and proportionate action.”

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,300+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Mar­ket­ingRx roundup: What could a US Tik­Tok ban mean for phar­ma? Pfiz­er, Lil­ly lead phar­ma March Mad­ness ad­ver­tis­ers

Just as pharma marketers finally make moves into TikTok, the threat of a US ban on the social media channel is now looming. Already banned on federal employee phones by an initial Congressional act, more bills and maybe bans are on the way. With rare bipartisan agreement, lawmakers have introduced legislation that would give the US president the power to ban TikTok (although not mentioned by name) and other foreign-owned technology platforms that represent a security threat to the US.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,300+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.