FDA commissioner Hahn ousts agency’s new chief spokesperson as plasma controversy continues to smolder

Stephen Hahn, FDA commissioner (Alex Brandon/AP Images)

August 28, 2020 02:05 PM EDT

FDA commissioner Hahn ousts agency’s new chief spokesperson as plasma controversy continues to smolder

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn capped a week of controversy over a fiasco revolving around his misleading comments on a Covid-19 treatment by ousting the agency’s newly-hired chief spokesperson, Emily Miller.

Miller had worked at the right-wing cable news network One America News — a favorite of President Trump’s — as well as for the campaign of Senator Ted Cruz before she was placed at the FDA just 11 days ago, according to the New York Times, which broke the story. Her appointment raised eyebrows at an agency that has long hired civil servants for such positions and worked to maintain its independence from political winds.

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Biogen CEO Michel Vounatsos (via Getty Images)

November 27, 2020 09:56 AM ESTUpdated 01:36 PM

Deals

With aducanumab caught on a cliff, Biogen’s Michel Vounatsos bets billions on another high-risk neuro play

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

With its FDA pitch on the Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab hanging perilously close to disaster, Biogen is rolling the dice on a $3.1 billion deal that brings in commercial rights to one of the other spotlight neuro drugs in late-stage development — after it already failed its first Phase III.

The big biotech has turned to Sage Therapeutics for its latest deal, close to a year after the crushing failure of Sage-217, now dubbed zuranolone, in the MOUNTAIN study.

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Pascal Soriot (AP Images)

November 23, 2020 05:43 AM ESTUpdated 02:00 PM

Coronavirus

AstraZeneca, Oxford on the defensive as skeptics dismiss 70% average efficacy for Covid-19 vaccine

Amber Tong

Editor

On the third straight Monday that the world wakes up to positive vaccine news, AstraZeneca and Oxford are declaring a new Phase III milestone in the fight against the pandemic. Not everyone is convinced they will play a big part, though.

With an average efficacy of 70%, the headline number struck analysts as less impressive than the 95% and 94.5% protection that Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have boasted in the past two weeks, respectively. But the British partners say they have several other bright spots going for their candidate. One of the two dosing regimens tested in Phase III showed a better profile, bringing efficacy up to 90%; the adenovirus vector-based vaccine requires minimal refrigeration, which may mean easier distribution; and AstraZeneca has pledged to sell it at a fraction of the price that the other two vaccine developers are charging.

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Jason Kelly, Ginkgo Bioworks CEO (Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

November 25, 2020 11:48 AM EST

Coronavirus

Manufacturing

After Kodak debacle, US lends $1.1B to a synthetic biology company and their big Covid-19, mRNA plans

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

In mid-August, as Kodak’s $765 million government-backed push into drug manufacturing slowly fell apart in national headlines, Ginkgo Bioworks CEO Jason Kelly got a message from his company’s government liaison: HHS wanted to know if they, too, might want a loan.

The government’s decision to lend Kodak three quarters of a billion dollars raised eyebrows because Kodak had never made drugs before. But Ginkgo, while not a manufacturing company, had spent the last decade refining new ways to produce materials inside cells and building automated facilities across Boston.

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November 23, 2020 07:27 AM EST

Deals

Coronavirus

In final days at Merck, Roger Perlmutter bets big on a little-known Covid-19 treatment

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

Roger Perlmutter is spending his last days at Merck, well, spending.

Two weeks after snapping up the antibody-drug conjugate biotech VelosBio for $2.75 billion, Merck announced today that it had purchased OncoImmune and its experimental Covid-19 drug for $425 million. The drug, known as CD24Fc, appeared to reduce the risk of respiratory failure or death in severe Covid-19 patients by 50% in a 203-person Phase III trial, OncoImmune said in September.

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Leonard Schleifer, Regeneron CEO (Andrew Harnik/AP)

November 23, 2020 06:32 AM EST

Regulatory

Coronavirus

Trailing Eli Lilly by 12 days, Regeneron gets the FDA OK for their Covid-19 antibody cocktail

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

A month and a half after becoming the experimental treatment of choice for a newly diagnosed president, Regeneron’s antibody cocktail has received emergency use authorization from the FDA. It will be used to treat non-hospitalized Covid-19 patients who are at high-risk of progressing.

Although the Rgeneron drug is not the first antibody treatment authorized by the FDA, the news comes as a significant milestone for a company and a treatment scientists have watched closely since the outbreak began.

November 25, 2020 11:31 AM ESTUpdated 03:22 PM

Regulatory

Coronavirus

FDA hands Liquidia and Revance a CRL and deferral, respectively, as Covid-19 creates inspection challenge

Nicole DeFeudis

Associate Editor

Two biotechs said they got turned away by the FDA on Wednesday, in part due to pandemic-related travel restrictions.

North Carolina-based Liquidia Technologies was handed a CRL for its lead pulmonary arterial hypertension drug, citing the need for more CMC data and on-site pre-approval inspections, which the FDA hasn’t been able to conduct due to travel restrictions. The agency also deferred its decision on Revance Therapeutics’ BLA for its frown line treatment, because it needs to inspect the company’s northern California manufacturing facility. The action, Revance emphasized, was not a CRL.

November 25, 2020 06:56 AM ESTUpdated 11:18 AM

Coronavirus

Covid-19 roundup: Europe purchases 80M doses of Moderna's vaccine; COVAXX secures $2.8B in emerging market pre-orders

Max Gelman

Associate Editor

Nicole DeFeudis

Associate Editor

Amber Tong

Editor

With the announcement of its vaccine efficacy data last week, Moderna is starting to line up customers for its Covid-19 mRNA jabs.

The Massachusetts-based biotech announced Wednesday it has agreed to sell an initial round of 80 million doses to the European Commission, with the option to double the amount to 160 million. Once the member states rubber stamp the approval, the deal will be finalized.

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November 24, 2020 08:37 AM EST

Bioregnum

Regulatory

The aducanumab conundrum: The PhIII failed a clear regulatory standard, but no one is certain what that means anymore at the FDA

Eighteen days ago, virtually all of the outside experts on an FDA adcomm got together to mug the agency’s Billy Dunn and the Biogen team when they presented their upbeat assessment on aducanumab. But here we are, more than 2 weeks later, and the ongoing debate over that Alzheimer’s drug’s fate continues unabated.

Instead of simply ruling out any chance of an approval, the logical conclusion based on what we heard during that session, a series of questionable approvals that preceded the controversy over the agency’s recent EUA decisions has come back to haunt the FDA, where the power of precedent is leaving an opening some experts believe can still be exploited by the big biotech.

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November 24, 2020 07:38 AM EST

Pharma

Coronavirus

A poll suggests vaccine data boosted Pfizer's public image, but other data point to long road ahead

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

For much of the pharmaceutical industry, the pandemic presented an opportunity: to prove their value to the world and turn public opinion around on a business much of the country had come to disdain.

That theory — that helping pull the country from a pandemic could neutralize years of anger over high drug prices — was put to its biggest test this month, as three different drugmakers announced data from their Covid-19 vaccines, offering the first major evidence that industry-built inoculations could turn the tide of the outbreak in the US.