Dif­ferin mak­er Gal­der­ma wins FDA ap­proval for a new retinoid for ac­ne

Da­ta sug­gest that in 2016 the bur­den of ac­ne vul­garis — the chron­ic in­flam­ma­to­ry skin dis­ease — bal­looned to rough­ly $3 bil­lion in health­care costs and lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the Unit­ed States. Now those pesky blem­ish­es have a new foe in the form of a top­i­cal retinoid from Gal­der­ma.

Gal­der­ma on Fri­day said it had se­cured the ap­proval of tri­farotene, a top­i­cal retinoid cream. Retinoids are a class of med­ica­tions de­rived from vi­t­a­min A that have long played in key role in ac­ne ther­a­py. Retinoids in­ter­act with retinoic acid re­cep­tor (RAR) and retinoid X re­cep­tor (RXR) — mem­bers of a su­per­fam­i­ly of lig­and-ac­ti­vat­ed tran­scrip­tion fac­tors — to re­duce vis­i­ble le­sions as well as in­hib­it the de­vel­op­ment of mi­cro­come­dones and new le­sions.

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