J&J takes one of its top block­buster prospects to the FDA, in search of a big ap­proval

Hot on the heels of a new round of Phase III da­ta show­ing that their IL-23 drug guselkum­ab hand­i­ly beat out Hu­mi­ra in treat­ing se­vere plaque pso­ri­a­sis, J&J has sub­mit­ted the drug for ap­proval at the FDA.

That’s good news for Mor­phoSys, which out-li­censed the drug to the phar­ma gi­ant. The biotech now gains a new mile­stone from their deal on this drug, which an­a­lysts be­lieve is a like­ly block­buster-in-the-mak­ing with a multi­bil­lion-dol­lar peak sales es­ti­mate. Last year J&J list­ed this drug, which has dis­tin­guished it­self from ri­vals tied to some se­vere side ef­fects, as one of 10 po­ten­tial block­busters it had in late-stage test­ing.

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