→ As Am­gen tracks mod­est growth of its Repatha fran­chise and braces for the ar­rival of cheap­er cho­les­terol-low­er­ing med­i­cines in the mar­ket, its com­mer­cial team is go­ing one step fur­ther to try and boost adop­tion of its PC­SK9 drug.

Mur­do Gor­don

Repatha’s list price will now be $5,850 across the board, not co-ex­ist­ing with the high­er cost op­tion. First in­tro­duced in Oc­to­ber 2018, that num­ber rep­re­sent­ed a 60% dis­count to the orig­i­nal $14,100 per year.

“We have seen sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments in ac­cess and af­ford­abil­i­ty, but not all Medicare pa­tients are ben­e­fit­ting from these im­prove­ments be­cause some Medicare Part D plans have not tran­si­tioned to the low­er list price op­tion of Repatha,” said Mur­do Gor­don, EVP of glob­al com­mer­cial op­er­a­tions, in a state­ment. “We are dis­con­tin­u­ing the orig­i­nal list price op­tion so that pay­ers and Medicare Part D health plans have clar­i­ty and can do their part: cov­er the low­er list price op­tion of Repatha to help every pa­tient pre­scribed Repatha fill their pre­scrip­tion at an af­ford­able, low fixed dol­lar co-pay.”

That rhetoric, fo­cused on costs to pa­tients and mid­dle­men’s roles, has been a key talk­ing point among bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies chas­tised for high drug prices.

David El­maleh AZTher­a­pies

While Repatha has per­formed bet­ter than Pralu­ent, the ri­val PC­SK9 ther­a­py from Re­gen­eron and Sanofi, sales are still far off from the block­buster fig­ures an­a­lysts had ex­pect­ed. And not on­ly has Am­gen lost a re­cent court fight to push that com­peti­tor out, it’s al­so fac­ing a new threat from The Med­i­cines Com­pa­ny’s in­clisir­an — an RNAi ther­a­peu­tic tout­ed as a su­pe­ri­or al­ter­na­tive to the an­ti­bod­ies.

→ Har­vard pro­fes­sor David El­maleh is adding CAR-Treg to his ar­se­nal of neu­roin­flam­ma­tion treat­ments at AZTher­a­pies through an ac­qui­si­tion of Smith Ther­a­peu­tics. The lit­tle biotech — al­so based in Boston — was found­ed by Philip Ash­ton-Rickardt, a for­mer Im­pe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don aca­d­e­m­ic who’s join­ing AZTher­a­pies as SVP of im­munol­o­gy. The pre­clin­i­cal CAR-Treg pro­grams he’s bring­ing to the com­pa­ny re­volves around im­muno­sup­pres­sive cells de­signed to damp­en mi­croglial ac­tiv­i­ty, there­by re­duc­ing in­flam­ma­tion.

Over the past few years, the promise of blocking CD47 — a “don’t eat me” signal co-opted by cancer cells — has sent drugmakers big and small into a frenzy. But one biotech is now bowing out.

Zai Lab is deprioritizing ZL-1201, its CD47 inhibitor, scrapping plans for a Phase II trial. It will now “pursue out-licensing opportunities,” the company said in its Q2 update. The decision was based on a review of the competitive landscape, it added, without going into further details.

Less than a week after HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra declared monkeypox a national health emergency, reports have emerged that the US plans to extend its vaccine supply by opting for a different route of administration.

Officials are expected to call for intradermal injection of Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine — the only shot approved specifically for monkeypox in the US — as opposed to subcutaneous injection, unnamed sources told both the New York Times and Washington Post on Tuesday.

In April, the FDA hit BioCryst with a partial hold, leading the biotech to pause enrollment on three of its rare disease clinical trials and sending its shares down 30%.

Last week, BioCryst said the partial clinical hold had been resolved and that it would resume enrolling its clinical trials for its drug, dubbed BCX9930, but with new protocols at a lower 400 mg dose.

BioCryst’s drug is a factor D inhibitor, which was being tested in an array of immune diseases. The biotech is running two pivotal trials for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, as well as a third trial looking at a set of three diseases — C3 glomerulopathy, IgA nephropathy and primary membranous nephropathy.