In blow to Shire, Roche bags an FDA OK for its block­buster he­mo­phil­ia A prospect

De­spite be­ing dogged by ques­tions about safe­ty and an un­usu­al le­gal coun­ter­at­tack from ri­val Shire, Roche to­day scored an FDA ap­proval for emi­cizum­ab (ACE910), its he­mo­phil­ia A ther­a­py which will now hit the mar­ket as Hem­li­bra.

The drug is de­signed to bring to­geth­er fac­tor IXa and fac­tor X pro­teins to re­store the blood clot­ting process for he­mo­phil­ia A pa­tients, re­duc­ing the threat of bleeds. And an­a­lysts have pegged po­ten­tial sales at up to $5 bil­lion, though Reuters‘ most re­cent con­sen­sus was a con­sid­er­ably less frothy $1.6 bil­lion.

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