Five years af­ter EU reg­u­la­tors ap­proved a ther­a­py to treat a rare in­her­it­ed meta­bol­ic con­di­tion that caus­es ex­treme sen­si­tiv­i­ty to light, the FDA has en­dorsed the treat­ment — mark­ing the first-ever ap­proval for pa­tients with ery­thro­poi­et­ic pro­to­por­phyr­ia (EPP) in the Unit­ed States.

The ther­a­py, which is ad­min­is­tered via an im­plant in­sert­ed sub­cu­ta­neous­ly, was de­vel­oped by Aus­tralian drug mak­er Clin­u­v­el Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and is sold as Sce­nesse.

In pa­tients with EPP, the ac­tiv­i­ty of fer­rochelatase — an en­zyme in­volved in the pro­duc­tion of a key com­po­nent in he­mo­glo­bin — is com­pro­mised. Re­duced fer­rochelatase ac­tiv­i­ty caus­es the ac­cu­mu­la­tion of pro­to­por­phyrin IX (PPIX) — and light ex­po­sure on the skin can re­act with PPIX, spark­ing in­tense pain, red­ness and thick­en­ing.

Sce­nesse, known chem­i­cal­ly as afame­lan­otide, binds with the melanocortin-1 re­cep­tor on the sur­face of melanocyte cells found in the epi­der­mis of the skin. This trig­gers a cas­cade of re­ac­tions that re­sult in the melanocyte fa­vor­ing the pro­duc­tion of eu­me­lanin (black/brown) over pheome­lanin (red/yel­low). The pro­duc­tion of eu­me­lanin in the skin in­de­pen­dent of ex­po­sure to sun­light or ar­ti­fi­cial light sources of­fers the pa­tient the abil­i­ty to cope with the mol­e­c­u­lar dam­age caused by light.

In Jan­u­ary, STAT pro­filed a Con­necti­cut woman who com­pared the pain she felt from light ex­po­sure to the ex­pe­ri­ence of hav­ing boil­ing oil poured on her hands and knees. On­ly around 600 Amer­i­cans suf­fer from EPP. Switzer­land and Italy had Clin­u­v­el agree to pay 80% of the drug’s cost be­fore al­low­ing it, ac­cord­ing to STAT.

“We are de­ter­min­ing our pric­ing strat­e­gy (in the Unit­ed States) but our ap­proach is go­ing to be far more trans­par­ent and fair than many of our peers. For this we re­fer you to our ap­proach to pric­ing in Eu­rope,” a Clin­u­v­el spokesper­son told End­points News.

Sce­nesse is priced in Eu­rope at €14,101 per in­jectable im­plant, or €56,404 per pa­tient based on four in­jectable im­plants per an­num (ex­clud­ing lo­cal tax­es), the spokesper­son added.

The US ap­proval for Sce­nesse was based on twin place­bo-con­trolled clin­i­cal tri­als. In the first 93-pa­tient tri­al, 48 sub­jects were giv­en Sce­nesse, while the rest were on place­bo.  Af­ter 180 days of ex­po­sure to di­rect sun­light be­tween 10 am and 6 pm, pa­tients on the ther­a­py were pain-free for a me­di­an 64 hours, ver­sus 41 hours for those in the place­bo arm.

In the oth­er 74-pa­tient study, 38 re­ceived Sce­nesse, while the rest got place­bo. Pa­tients were fol­lowed for 270 days which they spent out­doors be­tween 10 am and 3 pm and were as­sessed for pain lev­els — al­though the analy­sis did not in­clude sun ex­po­sure on days pa­tients re­port­ed spend­ing time in a com­bi­na­tion of both di­rect sun­light and shade. The me­di­an to­tal num­ber of hours un­der these con­di­tions in which pa­tients felt ‘no pain’ was six hours for pa­tients re­ceiv­ing Sce­nesse and 0.75 hours for pa­tients re­ceiv­ing place­bo.

Clin­u­v­el formed in 1987 af­ter re­searchers start­ed work­ing on the idea of syn­the­siz­ing hu­man hor­mones to pro­tect the skin.

Steve Holtzman was awoken by a 1 a.m. call from a doctor at Duke University asking if he could put some pigs on a plane and fly them from Ohio to North Carolina that day. A motorcyclist had gotten into a horrific crash, the doctor explained. He believed the pigs’ livers, sutured onto the patient’s skin like an external filter, might be able to tide the young man over until a donor liver became available.

Pfizer will present its case to the FDA’s vaccine adcomm next week, seeking authorization for a lower-dose version of its Covid-19 vaccine for kids ages 5 through 12, which the Biden administration said will likely begin rolling out early next month.

Two primary doses of the 10 µg vaccine (the dose for those ages 12 and up is 30 μg) given 3 weeks apart in this group of children “have shown a favorable safety and tolerability profile, robust immune responses against all variants of concern including Delta, and vaccine efficacy of 90.7% against laboratory-confirmed symptomatic COVID-19,” the company said in briefing documents ahead of next Tuesday’s meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

Ocular Therapeutix $OCUL has had its ups and downs in the 7 years since it went public. Friday was one of those down days.

The Bedford, MA-based biotech reported that its lead experimental eye drug, OTX-CSI (cyclosporine intracanalicular insert), failed a Phase II trial for dry eye disease. And the stock experienced one of its periodic meltdowns, dropping more than 30% ahead of the bell.

The therapy flat failed the primary endpoint: increased tear production at 12 weeks as measured by the Schirmer’s Test compared to the vehicle control group. And while investigators called out an improvement from baseline in “signs of dry eye disease as measured by total corneal fluorescein staining (CFS) and symptoms of dry eye disease as measured by the visual analogue scale (VAS) eye dryness in subjects treated with the OTX-CSI insert,” it wasn’t statistically significant.

Sanofi and Regeneron can boast of another inflammatory disease where Dupixent has proven effective.

The best-selling drug, which targets both IL-4 and IL-13, has delivered a clean sweep in a Phase III trial for prurigo nodularis, a chronic disease characterized by itch so intense that it can affect patients’ sleep and psychology. Thick skin lesions can cover most of the body.

On the primary endpoint, 37% of patients taking Dupixent saw a clinically meaningful reduction in itch compared to 22% of those on placebo (p=0.0216) at week 12. All secondary endpoints were also met, including clearance of skin lesions and improvement in quality of life.