Two days af­ter an en­thu­si­as­tic FDA in­sid­er re­view of Bio­gen’s ad­u­canum­ab pro­vid­ed a $15 bil­lion pop for the big biotech’s mar­ket cap, a pan­el of out­side ex­perts pro­vid­ed some fresh fire­works on the de­bate, with a big ma­jor­i­ty turn­ing thumbs down on the con­tro­ver­sial pitch that there are da­ta to prove the drug is ef­fec­tive — as well as the agency’s per­plex­ing en­dorse­ment.

Most of the ex­perts slapped down 3 ques­tions re­gard­ing whether there was any ev­i­dence to back the ef­fi­ca­cy of the drug — with a lone vote in fa­vor on one of the ques­tions.

The mon­ey ques­tion:

Con­sid­er­ing all the tri­al da­ta, the FDA asked, is it rea­son­able to con­sid­er the pos­i­tive study 302 “as pri­ma­ry ev­i­dence of ef­fec­tive­ness” for the treat­ment of Alzheimer’s dis­ease?

Ten said no, none said yes and there was one ab­sten­tion. Sev­er­al said the FDA pre­sen­ta­tion was heav­i­ly weight­ed in Bio­gen’s fa­vor, with no dis­cus­sion from the agency of the harsh­ly crit­i­cal sta­tis­ti­cal re­view from FDA staffers.

Any­one ex­pect­ing a dry and dis­pas­sion­ate re­view of the da­ta for Bio­gen’s Alzheimer’s drug ad­u­canum­ab at the FDA pan­el meet­ing Fri­day was in for a rude awak­en­ing.

Bil­ly Dunn

Both Bio­gen ex­ecs as well as Bil­ly Dunn, the head of the agency’s neu­ro­sciences di­vi­sion, of­fered a full-throat­ed en­dorse­ment of the drug, out­lin­ing the rea­sons why they found the da­ta back­ing the con­tro­ver­sial ap­pli­ca­tion “com­pelling.”

That ar­gu­ment, though, in­vit­ed a sharp shove back from mem­bers of the ad­vi­so­ry pan­el asked to weigh in on the ap­pli­ca­tion, es­pe­cial­ly from the sta­tis­ti­cians who re­peat­ed­ly probed why Dunn was so sup­port­ive when the FDA’s sta­tis­ti­cal re­view took the com­plete­ly op­pos­ing view, con­clud­ing that the da­ta were con­flict­ing, of­fered clear ev­i­dence that the drug doesn’t work and that Bio­gen’s ar­gu­ment in its fa­vor was hol­low.

“We brought in­no­v­a­tive think­ing to this un­usu­al sit­u­a­tion,” ar­gued Dunn, con­struct­ing sup­port for ad­u­canum­ab that dis­count­ed the ear­ly ter­mi­na­tion of the study due to fu­til­i­ty, of­fer­ing rea­sons why the 1 pos­i­tive late-stage study of­fered “ex­treme­ly per­sua­sive” rea­sons for an ap­proval, why the oth­er failed study could be ex­plained as pro­vid­ing sup­port­ing da­ta and why a small co­hort in an ear­li­er study al­so pro­vid­ed en­cour­age­ment for an OK — es­pe­cial­ly as Covid-19 de­mand­ed reg­u­la­tors to work co­op­er­a­tive­ly in sal­vaging tri­als.

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the pan­el were clear­ly out­raged by that.

G. Caleb Alexan­der, a Johns Hop­kins pro­fes­sor, blast­ed the FDA’s re­view as “strik­ing­ly in­con­gru­ous” which of­fered con­clu­sions that were at best com­pelling­ly con­flict­ed, rais­ing ques­tions on how the FDA could de­ter­mine there was ev­i­dence of ef­fec­tive­ness.

“It just feels like the au­dio and the video on the TV are out of sync,” he said.

For every point that sug­gests sup­port for the drug, he added, there are more that raise con­cerns.

At sev­er­al points, Alexan­der harsh­ly crit­i­cized Dunn’s team for skew­ing the brief­ing doc­u­ments and ques­tions in Bio­gen’s fa­vor. “I’m call­ing out the fact … that this ques­tion is open to elic­it­ing se­lec­tive in­for­ma­tion,” he not­ed at one point.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton’s Scott Emer­son was an­oth­er per­sis­tent crit­ic with point­ed crit­i­cism of the drug and the da­ta used to back the ap­pli­ca­tion.

And Joel Perl­mut­ter, a pro­fes­sor of neu­rol­o­gy, warned the pan­el that if the FDA ap­proved some­thing with­out strong ev­i­dence of ef­fi­ca­cy they would pre­vent a good and ef­fec­tive treat­ment from be­ing ap­proved “for more than a cou­ple of years, for many years.”

The friend­liest ques­tion the pan­el faced con­cerned whether tri­al 302, count­ed as the on­ly pos­i­tive study of the 2 Phase III ef­forts, pro­vid­ed strong ev­i­dence of ef­fi­ca­cy — if you al­so ig­nore 301, the failed tri­al.

That went down hard, with 8 ‘no’ votes, 1 ‘yes’ and 2 ab­sten­tions. Even the ab­stain­ers, though, of­fered ob­jec­tions.

How about the small­er study 103, the Phase II tri­al Dunn cit­ed for of­fer­ing some sup­port­ive da­ta for the drug? Was it sup­port­ive in some way?

The ex­perts shot that one down as well, by a vote of 7 no, 0 yes and 4 un­cer­tain.

The one up­beat re­sult was on patho­phys­i­ol­o­gy, but sev­er­al not­ed ques­tions whether the drug’s abil­i­ty to re­duce amy­loid would ever trans­late in­to ef­fi­ca­cy or an im­pact on symp­toms. That earned some sup­port: 5 yes and 6 un­cer­tain.

“I view the ques­tion nar­row­ly,” said Chia­di Onyike, say­ing there was clear ev­i­dence it mopped up amy­loid be­ta. And oth­ers not­ed ques­tions whether that was enough to gain clin­i­cal ef­fi­ca­cy, or if it’s the cor­rect bio­mark­er to use at all.

The FDA doesn’t have to con­sid­er the pan­el vote in mak­ing its de­ci­sion. In this case, giv­en the heat­ed ob­jec­tions, it would be hard to ig­nore. But giv­en Dunn’s ear­li­er de­ci­sions sup­port­ing Sarep­ta, there is still a dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty of an ap­proval.

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

US regulators cleared an ultra-rare drug from Pharming Group, by way of Novartis, on Friday afternoon.

The Dutch biotech said the FDA greenlit leniolisib for an immunodeficiency disease known as activated phosphoinositide 3-kinase delta (PI3Kδ) syndrome, or APDS. People 12 years and older can receive the oral drug, to be marketed as Joenja, beginning early next month, Pharming said, five days ahead of the decision deadline set by the FDA as part of a priority review.

The European Commission has once again delayed the release of its proposal for an overhaul of the continent’s pharmaceutical legislation.

The release, previously anticipated on March 29, will occur “slightly later” than expected due to the “very busy College agendas of the last few weeks,” a Commission spokesperson told Endpoints News via email.

While the agency hasn’t provided an updated timeline, the spokesperson said the agenda is “always indicative and adoption dates of Commission proposals may change any time, especially when these proposals concern reforms of complex legislations of major importance.”

Incyte touted an accelerated approval for its PD-1 retifanlimab in a rare skin cancer on Wednesday, roughly a year and a half after the drug suffered a rejection in squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC).

Retifanlimab, marketed as Zynyz, was approved for metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a fast-growing skin cancer typically characterized by a single, painless nodule. It’s roughly 40 times rarer than melanoma, according to the nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation — but incidence is growing, particularly among older adults, Incyte said in its announcement.