Am­gen used its Q3 re­port to­day to quick­ly bury the last broad­ly fo­cused CETP drug in the clin­ic, clos­ing the fi­nal chap­ter in an R&D sto­ry that con­sumed bil­lions of dol­lars in a fruit­less chase by some of the biggest de­vel­op­ers in the busi­ness for a ma­jor new heart drug.

Sean Harp­er

Two years ago, when Am­gen $AMGN R&D chief Sean Harp­er un­veiled a $1.55 bil­lion deal to buy Dez­i­ma — front­ed with $300 mil­lion in cash— he hap­pi­ly spec­u­lat­ed on the po­ten­tial of adding an­oth­er block­buster to the car­dio port­fo­lio. The right CETP in­hi­bi­tion ther­a­py, he felt, could have a big fu­ture by low­er­ing LDL and rais­ing HDL. And he was hope­ful the new mid-stage drug he had just pur­chased could fit the bill.

With­in weeks of the deal, though, Eli Lil­ly threw in the tow­el on its mas­sive Phase III for its own CETP drug, evace­trapib. That fol­lowed a bil­lion-dol­lar write-off for Pfiz­er’s ri­val Phase III, which al­so flopped. And Roche had al­ready walked away.

It looked so bad that for­mer Pfiz­er R&D chief John LaMat­ti­na sug­gest­ed that Am­gen might be bet­ter off cut­ting its loss­es just weeks af­ter the deal was done.

What an in­cred­i­ble waste of mon­ey. What were they think­ing? https://t.co/U6d3ScmgJh

— John LaMat­ti­na (@John_LaMat­ti­na) Oc­to­ber 25, 2017

The ex­e­cu­tion no­tice, though, didn’t ar­rive un­til to­day, not long af­ter Mer­ck had writ­ten off its own big Phase III for anace­trapib. Mer­ck stunned the car­dio field with the news that the drug had ac­tu­al­ly reg­is­tered pos­i­tive re­sults, but the lev­el of im­prove­ment was so mar­gin­al, the phar­ma gi­ant end­ed up walk­ing away af­ter test­ing it in more than 30,000 pa­tients.

There is, though, still one CETP drug in the clin­ic called dal­cetrapib, from a Lon­don-based com­pa­ny called Dal­Cor. Af­ter fail­ing a ma­jor Roche study, the drug was scrapped — then in­ves­ti­ga­tors linked the ther­a­py to a strong ben­e­fit for a sub­group of pa­tients with a cer­tain geno­type. Now Dal­Cor is pur­su­ing Phase III with 5,000 pa­tients, look­ing for a tar­get­ed ef­fect that could sal­vage val­ue yet.

Am­gen’s de­ci­sion vir­tu­al­ly elim­i­nates rais­ing HDL as a key to cut­ting car­dio risks for a big mar­ket, though. The field now is fo­cused pri­mar­i­ly on slash­ing LDL, where Am­gen has been push­ing hard in search­ing for a big new mar­ket for the PC­SK9 drug Repatha.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

US regulators cleared an ultra-rare drug from Pharming Group, by way of Novartis, on Friday afternoon.

The Dutch biotech said the FDA greenlit leniolisib for an immunodeficiency disease known as activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta (PI3Kδ) syndrome, or APDS. People 12 years and older can receive the oral drug, to be marketed as Joenja, beginning early next month, Pharming said, five days ahead of the decision deadline set by the FDA as part of a priority review.