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.

The researcher behind base-editing is out with what some scientists are hailing as the biggest advancement in CRISPR technology since that 2016 breakthrough: “prime editing.” The new molecular gadget is capable of erasing any base pair and stenciling in another and cutting or adding long segments of DNA without breaking both strands of the helix.

David Liu, base editing pioneer and founder of Beam Therapeutics, published the findings in Nature alongside Andrew Anzalone. They estimated that the breakthrough “in principle” puts 89% of human diseases in purview — although experts cautioned that human therapies were a long way off.

For the past three years Frazier Healthcare Partners’ Bhaskar Chaudhuri has been carefully and quietly grooming Arcutis Therapeutics, a new dermatology play he co-founded to deliver topical formulations of well-known drugs. Now that the biotech is poised to enter Phase III, he’s being joined by a marquee syndicate for its $94.5 million Series C.

HBM Healthcare Investments, Vivo Capital, BlackRock, Omega Funds, Pivotal BioVentures, and Goldman Sachs jumped on board, joining Bain Capital Life Sciences, OrbiMed and RA Capital Management in backing Arcutis’ lead topical cream for plaque psoriasis.

The remedy for the most common side effect for one of the most common multiple sclerosis drugs is simple: aspirin.

Taking aspirin with Biogen’s Tecfidera will reduce the flush, a sometimes painful form of red skin irritation, many patients experiences. The problem is that the aspirin has to be taken at least 30 minutes before Tecfidera, turning a simple twice-a-day, one-dose oral drug into a staggered two-drug regimen.

Despite a head start, when Bristol-Myers Squibb and its pioneering checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo suffered a key lung cancer setback in 2016, they found themselves relegated to the backseat as Merck’s Keytruda seized the wheel on the road to immunotherapy stardom. Bristol-Myers has since suffered blow after blow in its quest to take a big slice of the lucrative market, peppered with some small successes. On Tuesday, the New Jersey drugmaker touted positive data from a Phase III open-label study in a bid to carve itself a piece of the frontline lung cancer market.