The FDA’s hold on Juno Ther­a­peu­tics’ lead CAR-T pro­gram, JCAR015, last­ed on­ly six days. But the de­rail­ment was se­ri­ous enough to push its ex­pect­ed ap­proval date from 2017 back in­to 2018, leav­ing Kite Phar­ma and No­var­tis an­gling for the first ap­provals in the field in 2017.

Juno CEO Hans Bish­op

“Re­gard­ing the ROCK­ET tri­al,” Juno CEO Hans Bish­op told an­a­lysts Thurs­day evening, “the process of get­ting IRB ap­proval across mul­ti­ple sites along with the gat­ed en­roll­ment for the next six pa­tients leaves us to now es­ti­mat­ing ap­proval as ear­ly as the first half of 2018.”

The new H1 2018 pro­jec­tion marks a set­back for Juno, which had been seen as run­ning neck and neck with Kite in the race to get the land­mark ap­proval for a new can­cer ther­a­py that takes cells from pa­tients and reengi­neers them in­to a can­cer cell at­tack ve­hi­cle.

The hold last month, fol­low­ing the death of sev­er­al pa­tients from lethal cas­es of cere­bral ede­ma, stunned long­time ob­servers of Juno. The biotech quick­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly ap­pealed to the agency to lift the hold, say­ing they be­lieved that adding flu­dara­bine to its pre­con­di­tion­ing reg­i­men for pa­tients — prep­ping them to bet­ter re­spond to their CAR-T — had cre­at­ed a tox­ic com­bi­na­tion with the ther­a­py, killing 4 pa­tients. Reg­u­la­tors, who had al­so placed the same ther­a­py briefly on hold af­ter cy­tokine re­lease syn­drome al­so killed some pa­tients ear­ly on, were quick to re­spond af­fir­ma­tive­ly.

The de­lay leaves JCAR015 poised to en­ter the mar­ket just a year ahead of JCAR017. Bish­op de­scribes the sec­ond drug as “the back­bone of our CD19 fran­chise,” which is aimed at NHL, pe­di­atric and adult ALL and CLL.

Juno, though, is al­so mov­ing a va­ri­ety of pro­grams across a broad R&D front, and is now go­ing af­ter mul­ti­ple myelo­ma in a new pact that ropes in long­time col­lab­o­ra­tors at Memo­r­i­al Sloan Ket­ter­ing Can­cer Cen­ter.

In a sep­a­rate press re­lease, the Seat­tle-based biotech an­nounced Thurs­day evening that it had struck a deal with MSK and Eu­re­ka Ther­a­peu­tics for IP on bind­ing do­mains need­ed to com­mer­cial­ize a CAR-T for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma. These bind­ing do­mains were de­vel­oped in a pact that Eu­re­ka and MSK had struck ear­li­er.

That deal is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant, as it in­volves a ful­ly-hu­man bind­ing do­main tar­get­ing B-cell mat­u­ra­tion anti­gen (BC­MA), along with bind­ing do­mains against two ad­di­tion­al undis­closed mul­ti­ple myelo­ma tar­gets. The BC­MA pact puts Juno on a po­ten­tial col­li­sion course with blue­bird bio, which al­so chose that tar­get in a col­lab­o­ra­tion its pur­su­ing with Cel­gene. Those two play­ers re­struc­tured their deal last year to con­cen­trate on BC­MA and Cel­gene lat­er signed a ma­jor pact with Juno as well.

$JUNO is go­ing to col­lab­o­rate with MSK and Eu­re­ka Ther­a­peu­tics on MM. In­clud­ing the BC­MA tar­get so will com­pete with $BLUE.

— Brad Lon­car (@brad­lon­car) Au­gust 4, 2016

Pfiz­er and Cel­lec­tis are al­so aim­ing at BC­MA in their col­lab­o­ra­tion, but they’re con­cen­trat­ing on a sec­ond-gen, off-the-shelf prod­uct.

Juno CSO Hy Lev­it­sky

“We ex­pect the BC­MA CAR to en­ter hu­man test­ing as ear­ly as the first half 2017,” Juno CSO Hy Lev­it­sky told an­a­lysts. “We’re op­ti­mistic the CAR T cell ther­a­py can be an im­por­tant com­po­nent in treat­ing pa­tients with mul­ti­ple myelo­ma. And we are pleased to bring ad­di­tion­al ful­ly hu­man body do­main against BC­MA and oth­er tar­gets in­to our pro­gram. We be­lieve that a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach may be nec­es­sary to treat this dis­ease and hence the im­por­tance of ac­cess to sev­er­al hu­man con­structs spe­cif­ic for more than one tar­get.”

This isn’t the first such pact that Juno and Eu­re­ka have struck. Back at the be­gin­ning of the year the two com­pa­nies struck a deal on a ful­ly hu­man bind­ing do­main that tar­gets MUC16. These bind­ing do­mains play a key role in im­prov­ing cell per­sis­tence, amp­ing up their ef­fect on pa­tients. And the in­tense ri­val­ry to dom­i­nate the first wave of com­mer­cial CAR-Ts to hit the mar­ket has spurred an arms race for the best tech with the most po­ten­tial.

The FDA on Tuesday released a warning letter sent earlier this month to the Mason, OH-based site of Procter & Gamble Manufactura, raising questions about the list of ingredients on the label and in the electronic filing.

The warning says that for P&G’s over-the-counter Vicks Nyquil Severe Hot Remedy Cold and Flu Plus Congestion, there’s a “mismatched” list of active ingredients between the labeling and the electronic listing file. The listing file for the active ingredients did not match the active ingredients in the electronic file.

The Federal Trade Commission has gotten involved in a patent feud over Supernus’ Parkinson’s drug Apokyn, a case the agency said may have ‘‘significant implications” for patients who rely on the drug.

Sage Chemical won the first generic approval for its Apokyn formulation (also known as apomorphine hydrochloride injection) back in 2022. The non-ergoline dopamine agonist is approved to treat Parkinson’s symptoms during “off episodes,” such as difficulty moving, tremors and intense cramping. However, regulators specified that the approval pertained to the generic drug cartridges only, not the injector pen required for administration.