Lil­ly’s mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body, Taltz, which is al­ready ap­proved for pso­ri­at­ic arthri­tis and plaque pso­ri­a­sis has won its third ap­proval. The FDA has cleared its use in ac­tive anky­los­ing spondyli­tis (AS), a chron­ic in­flam­ma­to­ry rheumat­ic dis­or­der that af­fects the pelvic joints and spine, and can be char­ac­ter­ized by in­flam­ma­to­ry back pain, stiff­ness and im­paired func­tion and mo­bil­i­ty.

Taltz — akin to No­var­tis’ $NVS block­buster Cosen­tyx — in­hibits IL-17A, a cy­tokine in­volved in in­flam­ma­to­ry and im­mune re­spons­es. The drug, which will now al­so ad­dress the rough­ly 1.6 mil­lion Amer­i­cans with AS, gen­er­at­ed about $354 mil­lion in the sec­ond quar­ter.

Taltz was test­ed in two place­bo-con­trolled Phase III stud­ies that en­com­passed 657 AS pa­tients to eval­u­ate the pro­por­tion of pa­tients the drug had an im­pact on, in terms of symp­toms of pain, in­flam­ma­tion and func­tion at 16 weeks. In the COAST-V tri­al, which in­clud­ed pa­tients who had nev­er been treat­ed with an an­tirheumat­ic bi­o­log­ic, 48% of Taltz-treat­ed pa­tients achieved the re­sponse every four weeks ver­sus 18% of place­bo-treat­ed pa­tients (p<0.0001). In COAST-W tri­al, which in­volved pa­tients who did not ad­e­quate­ly ben­e­fit or were in­tol­er­ant to tu­mor necro­sis fac­tor (TNF) in­hibitors, 25% of pa­tients treat­ed with Taltz every four weeks achieved a re­sponse, ver­sus 13% of pa­tients giv­en the place­bo (p<0.05).

Four months ago, Lil­ly’s $LLY Taltz al­so cleared a late-stage study called COAST-X, in pa­tients with a form of in­flam­ma­to­ry arthri­tis in which there is no vis­i­ble ev­i­dence of dam­age on X-rays — non-ra­di­ograph­ic ax­i­al spondy­loarthri­tis (nr-AxS­pA).

Cosen­tyx is al­so ap­proved for AS, as is UCB’s TNF block­er Cimzia.

The European Medicines Agency on Friday rejected Kyowa Kirin’s Parkinson’s disease drug Nouryant (istradefylline), which the US FDA approved in 2019 under the brand name Nourianz.

EMA said it considered that the results of the clinical studies used to support the application “were inconsistent and did not satisfactorily show that Nouryant was effective at reducing the ‘off’ time. Only four out of the eight studies showed a reduction in ‘off’ time, and the effect did not increase with an increased dose of Nouryant.”

After a four-year battle over a cancer drug patent, Novartis has been ordered by a California judge to pay a Daiichi Sankyo subsidiary $177.8 million.

Plexxikon filed a lawsuit against the pharma giant in 2017, alledging that Tafinlar, a rival to its melanoma drug Zelboraf that was brought to market in collaboration with Roche, has stepped on its intellectual property. The jury ruled in its favor, adding that the infringement is in fact willful.

As Biogen execs bemoaned the negative media coverage around Aduhelm’s approval a month ago, the biotech isn’t gaining much traction yet in using its new drug, largely due to a lack of insurance coverage, according to an earnings call Thursday.

Management indicated that of the nearly 900 sites that were prepped and ready following Aduhelm’s approval, 325 of those, or about 35%, have completed a positive pharmacy and therapeutics (P&T) review or won’t require one. The review is a step some hospitals or health systems take prior to using a new drug. Some major sites, however, have said they won’t participate.