As AstraZeneca and Merck look to continue building out their Lynparza franchise, one cancer type is proving too tough a nut to crack.

The Big Pharma partners reported Tuesday morning that a Phase III trial evaluating Lynparza in colorectal cancer as both a monotherapy and in combination with Avastin was stopped early due to futility. The move comes after the data monitoring committee reviewed data for a planned interim analysis. Both drug arms will be discontinued, the companies said.

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The bizarre dynamics of the US prescription drug market were on full display once again this morning as Amgen announced that it would launch the first US biosimilar for Humira, the best-selling drug of all time, at two completely different list prices.

One price for Amgen’s Amjevita (adalimumab-atto) will be 55% below the current Humira list price, which is about $84,000 per year, and another at a list price 5% below the current Humira list price, but presumably (pharma companies don’t disclose rebates) with high rebates to attract PBMs and payers.

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When troubled public biotech Cortexyme bought a private startup named Novosteo and handed the keys to its executive team, the company — which changed its name to Quince Therapeutics — said it would shift its focus from an unorthodox Alzheimer’s approach to Novosteo’s bone-targeting drug platform.

Less than a year later, Quince is pivoting again.

The biotech has decided to out-license its bone-targeting drug platform and its lead drug, NOV004, and instead look for clinical-stage programs to in-license or acquire, according to a press release.

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Following the success of the mRNA Covid vaccines, cancer vaccines are seeing renewed interest after years of middling results. But a group of researchers suggests that more attention needs to be paid not to what goes into those vaccines, but how the parts are put together.

In a recent paper published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, researchers led by Northwestern University’s Chad Mirkin describe how the placement of different antigens in a cancer vaccine impacts its efficacy. The paper builds on past work done by Mirkin’s lab that suggests the structure, or how the parts of a vaccine are arranged, impact a vaccine’s efficacy, not just its components.

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The 20-year reign of AbbVie’s best-selling biologic of all time — the autoimmune disease biologic Humira (adalimumab) that has brought in upwards of $200 billion during its monopoly — is coming to an end tomorrow with the launch of Amgen’s biosimilar Amjevita.

The launch comes more than four years after Europe saw the exact same competition, leading to steep discounts in price, higher uptake, and big cost savings across the board.

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