As­traZeneca caught a trio of re­cent wins — scor­ing an ex­pand­ed in­di­ca­tion for its breast can­cer drug En­her­tu, nail­ing Farx­i­ga’s Phase III win ear­li­er this week, and now, an­oth­er tri­al win.

The UK phar­ma said Thurs­day that its long-act­ing C5 com­ple­ment in­hibitor drug Ul­tomiris (ravulizum­ab-cwvz) hit on its pri­ma­ry end­point in the Phase III CHAM­PI­ON-NMOSD study. That end­point was to show a “sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant and clin­i­cal­ly mean­ing­ful re­duc­tion in the risk of re­lapse in adults” with a spe­cif­ic type of a rare au­toim­mune dis­ease that tar­gets the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem.

Neu­romyelitis op­ti­ca spec­trum dis­or­der, or NMOSD, is cur­rent­ly an in­cur­able dis­ease that tar­gets the spine and op­tic nerves. Most peo­ple liv­ing with NMOSD tend to ex­pe­ri­ence “re­laps­es” (which hap­pen when there is in­flam­ma­tion in the ner­vous sys­tem), or an on­set of neu­ro­log­ic symp­toms or wors­en­ing of ex­ist­ing neu­ro­log­i­cal symp­toms such as blind­ness, par­tial paral­y­sis or spasms.

Ac­cord­ing to As­traZeneca, the drug met the pri­ma­ry end­point of time to first on-tri­al re­lapse. No re­lapse was ob­served in 58 pa­tients over a me­di­an treat­ment du­ra­tion of 73 weeks.

The lead pri­ma­ry in­ves­ti­ga­tor for the tri­al, Sean J. Pit­tock out of Mayo Clin­ic’s Cen­ter for Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis and Au­toim­mune Neu­rol­o­gy, said in a state­ment, “Every NMOSD re­lapse can have de­bil­i­tat­ing and ir­re­versible con­se­quences, so re­duc­ing re­laps­es is crit­i­cal.”

The drug was first ap­proved by the FDA back in 2018 to treat pa­tients at least one-month-old to treat blood dis­ease parox­ys­mal noc­tur­nal he­mo­glo­bin­uria — the same dis­ease be­ing tar­get­ed at BioCryst with its lead can­di­date. BioCryst an­nounced this morn­ing that the FDA im­posed a par­tial clin­i­cal hold on its can­di­date as part of its Q1 earn­ings an­nounce­ment.

The drug is al­so a fol­low-up to Alex­ion’s block­buster Soliris, al­so a com­ple­ment fac­tor 5 in­hibitor, which As­traZeneca now owns af­ter pay­ing a be­he­moth $39 bil­lion last year to ac­quire the com­pa­ny. And so far, there is not a ton of com­pe­ti­tion in the space. To date, there are on­ly three drugs ap­proved for NMOSD, more specif­i­cal­ly AQP4-Ab pos­i­tive NMOSD: As­traZeneca’s Soliris, Viela Bio’s Up­lin­za and En­spryng from Genen­tech.

As the House-passed bill to cap the monthly price of insulin at $35 nationwide makes its way for a Senate vote soon, Sanofi announced Wednesday morning that beginning next month it will cut the monthly price of its insulins for uninsured Americans to $35, down from $99 previously.

The announcement from Sanofi, which allows the uninsured to buy one or multiple Sanofi insulins (Lantus, Insulin Glargine U-100, Toujeo, Admelog, and Apidra) at $35 for a 30-day supply effective July 1, follows House passage (232-193) of the monthly cap in March, with just 12 Republicans voting in favor of the measure.

As Astellas continues its drive to build out its gene therapy portfolio and capabilities, a subsidiary of the Japanese pharma company has entered into a collaboration with a little-known Pittsburgh biotech.

Astellas-owned Mitobridge and Generian Pharmaceuticals announced on Wednesday that they will work together in a new deal for “undruggable” protein targets. Generian will net an undisclosed upfront payment and could get up to $180 million in milestones, should anything from its platform prove successful, as well as single-digit royalties on global net sales.

Three months separated from a disappointing readout of its Covid-19 vaccine, Icosavax is back with what it calls positive topline data for a different VLP vaccine candidate — although investors aren’t impressed.

IVX-121, a vaccine candidate for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), appeared to generate “robust” immune responses among both young and older adults, as measured by neutralizing antibodies, and appeared generally well-tolerated, Icosavax reported.