Some­body high up at the FDA must re­al­ly like Karyopharm $KP­TI.

On Wednes­day the biotech an­nounced that the agency had stamped an OK on their ap­pli­ca­tion to mar­ket se­linex­or for mul­ti­ple myelo­ma, cut­ting ahead of the late-stage re­sults — though in an in­trigu­ing note the agency said they had a look at ad­di­tion­al re­sults from an on­go­ing study.

The ap­proval came de­spite a sol­id ma­jor­i­ty of ex­perts on an out­side pan­el who vot­ed against a quick OK, pre­fer­ring to see the Phase III da­ta first. And it ar­rives de­spite an in­ter­nal re­view com­plete with a host of ob­jec­tions to the da­ta de­liv­ered to back the pitch.

The drug will be sold as Xpovio at a whole­sale price of $22,000 a month.

Pre­sent­ed with the sur­prise turn­around, in­vestors bid up the shares by 36% as a copy of the la­bel spread on Twit­ter ahead of the re­lease.

FDA rep­re­sen­ta­tives were po­lite about it, but out­lined mul­ti­ple prob­lems with the da­ta that Karyopharm pre­sent­ed: Miss­ing da­ta due to dropouts, un­ac­cept­able re­al world ev­i­dence, an ab­sence of ev­i­dence of pos­i­tive sin­gle agent ac­tiv­i­ty (there are neg­a­tive re­sults), most­ly par­tial re­spons­es and much, much more — all in­for­ma­tion that the biotech failed to spot­light in the lead-up to the NDA. In one study the FDA cit­ed, the over­all sur­vival rate was worse in the se­linex­or arm.

David Har­ring­ton [Dana Far­ber]

Then there was the tox­i­c­i­ty pro­file, with a high fre­quen­cy of treat­ment emer­gent ad­verse events among pa­tients tak­ing the drug. The agency cit­ed a 94% rate of grade 3 or grade 4 ad­verse event. 10 deaths were due to a fa­tal ad­verse event in the main sin­gle arm study used for the ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval. And 9 in 10 pa­tients re­quired a dose mod­i­fi­ca­tion, with a ma­jor­i­ty re­quir­ing 2 mod­i­fi­ca­tions.

That case per­suad­ed 8 of 13 ex­perts to vote against an ear­ly ap­proval. But the 5 votes in fa­vor il­lus­trat­ed the agency’s ap­petite for new drugs for pa­tients who have run out of op­tions.

Dana Far­ber’s David Har­ring­ton joined the mi­nor­i­ty in fa­vor of pro­vid­ing an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval. “The da­ta are not con­clu­sive in ei­ther di­rec­tion,” he said at the time, but…”I think we do pa­tients some po­ten­tial ben­e­fit if this is used con­struc­tive­ly.”

They’ll have that now. The drug is re­served for the last line of de­fense af­ter at least 4 pri­or drugs.

Biohaven is at risk of making a habit of disappointing its investors. 

Late Friday the biotech $BHVN reported that the FDA had rejected its application for riluzole, an old drug that they had made over into a sublingual formulation that dissolves under the tongue. According to Biohaven, the FDA had a problem with the active ingredient used in a bioequivalence study back in 2017, which they got from the Canadian drugmaker Apotex.

Let the long battle for biosimilars in the cancer space begin.

Amgen has launched its Avastin and Herceptin copycats — licensed from the predecessors of Allergan — almost two years after the FDA had stamped its approval on Mvasi (bevacizumab-awwb) and three months after the Kanjinti OK (trastuzumab-anns). While the biotech had been fielding biosimilars in Europe, this marks their first foray in the US — and the first oncology biosimilars in the country.

→ On the same day it announced a $17.5 million Series C, life sciences and health data company Seer unveiled that it had lured former FDA commissioner and ex-CMS administrator Mark McClellan on to its board. “Mark’s deep understanding of the health care ecosystem and visionary insights on policy reform will be crucial in informing our thinking as we work to bring our liquid biopsy and life sciences products to market,” said Seer chief and founder Omid Farokhzad in a statement.

Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day’s new task hunting up a CSO for the company isn’t stopping the industry’s dominant antiviral player from doing pipeline deals.

The big biotech today snapped up 3 preclinical antiviral programs from pharma giant Novartis, with drugs promising to treat human rhinovirus, influenza and herpes viruses. We don’t know what the upfront is, but the back end has $291 million in milestones baked in.