Flame Bio­sciences search­es for fu­ture af­ter No­var­tis flunks on canakinum­ab

Flame Bio­sciences de­buted with the idea that its mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body that in­hibits IL-1ß, a key cy­tokine in in­flam­ma­tion, would be ef­fec­tive at re­duc­ing can­cer.

But the Penn­syl­va­nia biotech flashed the yel­low lights on test­ing that hy­poth­e­sis last year be­cause it want­ed to see if a Big Phar­ma could prove it first. No­var­tis failed — again and again and again. The Swiss gi­ant’s canakinum­ab got the FDA no-go back in 2018 for car­dio risk re­duc­tion, but No­var­tis thought the drug would work in on­col­o­gy.

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