Aca­cia Phar­ma did well on the R&D front — by 2017, it had con­duct­ed four pos­i­tive piv­otal clin­i­cal tri­als for its lead drug, Barhem­sys. Lat­er that year, it sub­mit­ted an FDA ap­pli­ca­tion to mar­ket the drug for res­cue treat­ment of pa­tients who de­vel­op post­op­er­a­tive nau­sea & vom­it­ing (PONV), de­spite hav­ing been giv­en pri­or antiemet­ic pro­phy­lax­is — on­ly to re­ceive a re­jec­tion in Oc­to­ber 2018.

The US agency made its de­ci­sion based on a pre-ap­proval in­spec­tion of a fa­cil­i­ty run by the con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er of the drug’s main in­gre­di­ent — amisul­pride — and not on clin­i­cal or non-clin­i­cal da­ta in the ap­pli­ca­tion, as­sured Aca­cia in a press re­lease, adding that the FDA had asked for no ex­tra stud­ies or da­ta analy­ses re­lat­ed to the treat­ment.

With re­newed en­thu­si­asm lat­er that month, Aca­cia said its con­tract man­u­fac­tur­er had agreed to “in­sti­tute a cor­rec­tive and pre­ven­tive ac­tion plan that will rec­ti­fy the de­fi­cien­cy iden­ti­fied as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. We con­tin­ue to plan for a launch in the first half of 2019,” Aca­cia chief Ju­lian Gilbert said in a state­ment.

Ju­lian Gilbert

Aca­cia then re­sub­mit­ted its mar­ket­ing ap­pli­ca­tion in De­cem­ber, in­di­cat­ing that the FDA’s con­cerns out­lined in the com­plete re­sponse let­ter had been re­solved. But on Fri­day, the com­pa­ny re­ceived an­oth­er re­jec­tion, with the FDA flag­ging the same con­cerns.

“We are on track to com­plete the qual­i­fi­ca­tion of an al­ter­na­tive sup­pli­er of amisul­pride and plan to en­gage with FDA as soon as pos­si­ble to de­ter­mine the most rapid route to ob­tain­ing ap­proval,” Gilbert said in a state­ment on Fri­day.

Barhem­sys is de­signed to help the 30-40% of sur­gi­cal pa­tients who suf­fer from PONV de­spite pri­or pro­phy­lax­is, as well as for com­bi­na­tion pro­phy­lax­is in high-risk pa­tients.

Cam­bridge, UK-based Aca­cia Phar­ma, which al­so has US op­er­a­tions in In­di­anapo­lis, was found­ed in 2007. It has an­oth­er amisul­pride-based drug — APD403 — in mid-stage de­vel­op­ment for chemother­a­py in­duced nau­sea & vom­it­ing.

Hal Barron has his second positive round of Phase III data in hand for his anti-BCMA antibody drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin (GSK2857916). And GSK’s research chief says the data paves the way for their drive in search of an FDA approval for treating multiple myeloma. 

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of this drug for GSK, a cornerstone of Barron’s campaign to make a dramatic impact on the oncology market and provide some long-lost excitement for the pharma giant’s pipeline. They’re putting this BCMA program at the front of that charge — looking to lead a host of rivals all aimed at the same target.

During BIO this year, I had a chance to moderate a panel among some of the top tech experts in biopharma on their real-world use of artificial intelligence in R&D. There’s been a lot said about the potential of AI, but I wanted to explore more about what some of the larger players are actually doing with this technology today, and how they see it advancing in the future. It was a fascinating exchange, which you can see here. The transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity. — John Carroll

Novartis $NVS may have given up, but Amgen $AMGN and Allergan $AGN are plowing ahead with their knockoff of Roche’s blockbuster biologic Rituxan in the United States.

Their copycat, ABP 798, was found to have a clinically equivalent impact as Rituxan — meeting the main goal of the study involving CD20-positive B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients. This is the second trial supporting the profile of the biosimilar. In January, it came through with positive PK results in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.