Shares of Ax­some Ther­a­peu­tics $AXSM shot up Mon­day morn­ing on the sur­prise news that its lead drug scored sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant re­sults for Alzheimer’s ag­i­ta­tion, a rel­a­tive­ly green field in drug R&D, in what’s billed as a piv­otal Phase II/III tri­al. But the com­pa­ny will have plen­ty of high-risk work to do be­fore it can ex­pect an FDA ap­proval.

Com­ing off the ropes of a late-stage fail for AXS-05 in treat­ment-re­sis­tant de­pres­sion, the biotech re­ports that their drug scored well against a place­bo based on a care­giv­er-rat­ed scale of Alzheimer’s pa­tients’ be­hav­ior, which in­cludes track­ing episodes of scream­ing or hit­ting. At week 5 re­searchers tracked mean re­duc­tions from base­line of 15.4 points for AXS-05 and 11.5 points for place­bo, giv­ing them a p val­ue of 0.010.

The drug, a com­bi­na­tion of 2 ther­a­pies — dex­tromethor­phan and bupro­pi­on — al­so beat out bupro­pi­on alone. And the drug achieved su­pe­ri­or­i­ty at week 3, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny.

An­a­lysts, mean­while, have been pri­mar­i­ly track­ing this drug’s po­ten­tial in ma­jor de­pres­sive dis­or­der, where the com­pa­ny is lin­ing up a near-term ap­pli­ca­tion with the FDA af­ter re­port­ing up­beat da­ta in one of the tough­est fields in R&D. That left ex­pec­ta­tions low as the biotech ac­cel­er­at­ed the study read­out due to Covid-19 in­to Q2 from Q3.

Marc Good­man at SVB Leerink re­cent­ly not­ed:

In fact, we don’t be­lieve in­vestors in­clude any­thing for this in­di­ca­tion, and with good da­ta, we would as­sume the stock could be up $18 if in­vestors as­sume $650M of added peak sales at 50% POS, which we think is very rea­son­able.

Ac­tu­al­ly, the ini­tial re­sponse was much bet­ter than that, as Ax­some stock gy­rat­ed up more than 40% on the news. This is an un­cer­tain are­na, though, with re­searchers of­ten forced to stick with dif­fi­cult end­points and tough place­bo re­spons­es as care­givers track re­spons­es.

Good­man and oth­ers like to point out that no oth­er drug has been specif­i­cal­ly ap­proved for Alzheimer’s ag­i­ta­tion, leav­ing this a big op­por­tu­ni­ty. But oth­ers have tried and failed to make the da­ta stick, and this is an area where reg­u­la­tors will like­ly de­mand plen­ty of pos­i­tive da­ta.

Ot­su­ka’s Avanir un­der­scored just how dif­fi­cult this could be with their pro­gram for AVP-786 — deudex­tromethor­phan hy­dro­bro­mide [d6-DM]/quini­dine sul­fate) — which first scored a win in the first Phase III and then flopped in the sec­ond last fall.

Janet Woodcock may have one of the most historically long and drug-intense tenures in FDA history, but her new role is outside of all things pharma and the once-acting FDA commissioner isn’t looking back.

“No I really don’t look back,” Woodcock told Endpoints News via email on Monday morning. “Yes I will be transitioning. Longer discussion on infrastructure needed.”

Pfizer has agreed to pay $290,000 to settle allegations of questionable copay coupon practices in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Vermont from 2014 to 2018.

While the company has not admitted any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, Pfizer has agreed to issue restitution checks to about 5,000 consumers.

A Pfizer spokesperson said the company has “enhanced its co-pay coupons to alleviate the concerns raised by states and agreed to a $30,000 payment to each.”

A judge in Delaware has ruled against Astellas Pharma and Gilead in a long-running patent case over Pfizer-onwed Hospira’s generic version of Lexiscan.

The case kicked off in 2018, after Hospira submitted an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for approval to market a generic version of Gilead’s Lexiscan. The drug is used in myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), a type of nuclear stress test.

The area of Ireland famous for Blarney Castle and its cliffsides along the Atlantic Ocean is seeing Merck KGaA expand its commitment there.

The German drug manufacturer is expanding its membrane and filtration manufacturing capabilities in Ireland. The company will invest approximately €440 million ($470 million) to increase membrane manufacturing capacity in Carrigtwohill, Ireland, and build a new manufacturing facility at Blarney Business Park, in County Cork, Ireland.

Twenty House Democrats, including Reps. Katie Porter of California and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, are calling on Senate leaders to move quickly with a reconciliation bill (meaning they only need a simple majority for passage) with prescription drug pricing reforms, and to include adding new authority for Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

They also called on the Senate to specifically follow suit with the House passage of a $35 per month insulin cap (as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s deadline for a vote on that provision has come and gone), and to cap Medicare Part D costs at $2,000 per year for seniors.