Mer­ck should know be­fore the end of this year whether or not the FDA will ap­prove its drug gefapix­ant for chron­ic cough. The reg­u­la­tor has set a PDU­FA date of Dec. 21 for the drug, giv­ing the phar­ma gi­ant a reg­u­lar re­view for a close­ly watched de­vel­op­ment pro­gram.

Roy Baynes

Gefapix­ant is the leader among a group of P2X3 re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nists that are rac­ing to com­pete for a share of this pro­gram. That’s one rea­son why the agency has in­formed Mer­ck that it plans to hold an ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee for the re­view.

Mer­ck’s Roy Baynes has de­scribed this one as an­oth­er “pipeline in a prod­uct,” but it’s no shoo-in. The drug hit sta­tis­ti­cal sig­nif­i­cance on risk re­duc­tion, but in­ves­ti­ga­tors al­so flagged high dropout rates due to ad­verse events in the drug arm. So even with an OK, the phar­ma gi­ant could soon face ri­vals an­gling for bet­ter ef­fi­ca­cy and a stronger safe­ty pro­file.

Bay­er and Sh­iono­gi have com­pet­i­tive pro­grams in the clin­ic, but the chief ri­val right now is Bel­lus, though BLU-5937 failed a Phase II tri­al. That drug is now in an adap­tive Phase IIb. — John Car­roll

Mor­phic shares soar af­ter Phase I read­out for nov­el in­hibitor in IBD

On Mon­day, Waltham, MA-based Mor­phic Ther­a­peu­tics un­veiled Phase I proof-of-con­cept da­ta for its oral α4β7 in­te­grin in­hibitor MORF-057 in IBD. Turns out in­vestors like that da­ta — a lot.

Mor­phic $MORF was trad­ing up about 90% ear­ly Mon­day morn­ing on the heels of the news, putting the biotech’s shares in the range of $70.

In the three high­est dose co­horts of MORF-057’s Phase I pro­gram, the drug showed a mean re­cep­tor oc­cu­pan­cy of 95%, Mor­phic said, of­fer­ing hope that the drug can suf­fi­cient­ly “sat­u­rate” the α4β7 in­te­grin.

Mor­phic is plan­ning a Phase II study based on the ear­ly-stage re­sults in ul­cer­a­tive col­i­tis. Mean­while, the biotech is run­ning a con­cur­rent food-ef­fect study. — Kyle Blanken­ship

Chi­nook hands over up­front pay­ment to launch CKD deal with Evotec

Cana­da’s Chi­nook Ther­a­peu­tics has inked a dis­cov­ery and de­vel­op­ment deal with Evotec on new drugs for chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease.

In the deal the Eu­ro­pean CRO is gain­ing an undis­closed up­front pay­ment, re­search funds and more as Evotec’s team starts the hunt for new drugs.

“CKD is a col­lec­tive term for a va­ri­ety of dis­eases that cause a grad­ual loss of kid­ney func­tion. The di­ver­si­ty in the un­der­ly­ing caus­es makes this area es­pe­cial­ly fa­vor­able for da­ta-dri­ven and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly per­son­al­ized ap­proach­es,” said Cord Dohrmann, the CSO of Evotec. “By lever­ag­ing our com­ple­men­tary plat­forms, Evotec and Chi­nook have the best pos­si­ble start­ing po­si­tion to tack­le par­tic­u­lar rare forms of CKD with the goal to de­vel­op dis­ease-mod­i­fy­ing ther­a­peu­tics for un­der­served pa­tient pop­u­la­tions.”

Back last sum­mer Chi­nook ex­e­cut­ed a re­verse merg­er with the strug­gling Aduro to get on­to Nas­daq. The biotech raised more than $100 mil­lion to go along with the merg­er. — John Car­roll

Ox­u­lar nets $37M to ad­vance once-a-year eye dis­ease treat­ments

British biotech Ox­u­lar Lim­it­ed com­plet­ed a new $37 mil­lion fund­ing round it hopes to use to fi­nance clin­i­cal tri­als.

The cash will go to­ward Phase II stud­ies be­gin­ning lat­er this year to eval­u­ate the pro­gram OXU-001 for the treat­ment of DME, which Ox­u­lar says is the lead­ing cause of blind­ness in young adults in de­vel­oped coun­tries. Promi­nent Eu­ro­pean VC firm For­bion led the round.

Giv­en that a key chal­lenge for these pa­tients is re­peat­ed clin­i­cal vis­its, Ox­u­lar has de­vel­oped OXU-001 to be a sus­tained-re­lease for­mu­la­tion of dex­am­etha­sone that can pro­vide up to 12 months of treat­ment fol­low­ing a sin­gle dose.

Some of the funds will al­so go to­ward a Phase II study for a sep­a­rate can­di­date in retinoblas­toma. Pro­grams for uveal melanoma and age-re­lat­ed mac­u­lar de­gen­er­a­tion and di­a­bet­ic retinopa­thy will al­so be prepped for IND sub­mis­sions. — Max Gel­man

Rea­ta shoots for fast re­view of its first NDA

War­ren Huff

Af­ter a years-long clin­i­cal quest, Plano, TX-based Rea­ta has filed an NDA in search of an ap­proval for bar­dox­olone in Al­port syn­drome.

The biotech’s CEO, War­ren Huff, adds that they’re shoot­ing for pri­or­i­ty re­view sta­tus in an at­tempt to short­en the FDA’s han­dling of the NDA by 4 months. This ap­pli­ca­tion marks Rea­ta’s first for­mal shot at an FDA ap­proval.

In an up­date, Rea­ta al­so not­ed plans to re­vise an­oth­er clin­i­cal study that had been paused due to the pan­dem­ic.

We are plan­ning to amend the FAL­CON pro­to­col to in­crease the tar­get en­roll­ment from 300 pa­tients to a to­tal of 550 pa­tients.   With the planned in­crease in an­tic­i­pat­ed en­roll­ment, we ex­pect to com­plete en­roll­ment in FAL­CON by the end of 2021.

— John Car­roll

Janet Woodcock may have one of the most historically long and drug-intense tenures in FDA history, but her new role is outside of all things pharma and the once-acting FDA commissioner isn’t looking back.

“No I really don’t look back,” Woodcock told Endpoints News via email on Monday morning. “Yes I will be transitioning. Longer discussion on infrastructure needed.”

Pfizer has agreed to pay $290,000 to settle allegations of questionable copay coupon practices in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, and Vermont from 2014 to 2018.

While the company has not admitted any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, Pfizer has agreed to issue restitution checks to about 5,000 consumers.

A Pfizer spokesperson said the company has “enhanced its co-pay coupons to alleviate the concerns raised by states and agreed to a $30,000 payment to each.”

A judge in Delaware has ruled against Astellas Pharma and Gilead in a long-running patent case over Pfizer-onwed Hospira’s generic version of Lexiscan.

The case kicked off in 2018, after Hospira submitted an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for approval to market a generic version of Gilead’s Lexiscan. The drug is used in myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), a type of nuclear stress test.

The area of Ireland famous for Blarney Castle and its cliffsides along the Atlantic Ocean is seeing Merck KGaA expand its commitment there.

The German drug manufacturer is expanding its membrane and filtration manufacturing capabilities in Ireland. The company will invest approximately €440 million ($470 million) to increase membrane manufacturing capacity in Carrigtwohill, Ireland, and build a new manufacturing facility at Blarney Business Park, in County Cork, Ireland.

Twenty House Democrats, including Reps. Katie Porter of California and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, are calling on Senate leaders to move quickly with a reconciliation bill (meaning they only need a simple majority for passage) with prescription drug pricing reforms, and to include adding new authority for Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

They also called on the Senate to specifically follow suit with the House passage of a $35 per month insulin cap (as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s deadline for a vote on that provision has come and gone), and to cap Medicare Part D costs at $2,000 per year for seniors.

Umoja Biopharma will pair its so-called VivoVec particles with Lupagen’s Side CAR-T delivery system to target certain cancers, the companies said Monday.

As part of the deal, Umoja’s cell therapies could be delivered via an additional route thanks to Lupagen’s extracorporeal in vivo tech. The Dallas gene therapy company’s tech is expected to provide efficiency and “highly controlled viral vector targeting of T cells,” the companies added.

As the cases of monkeypox now sit at well over 100 worldwide and have spread to multiple continents, the orders for any type of vaccine against monkeypox are seeing nations and medical bodies looking to get their hands on anything and everything. And now SIGA Technologies seems to be getting in on the action.

According to Euronews, SIGA Technologies, a pharmaceutical company that is focused on providing medical countermeasures to biological and chemical attacks, is now in talks with several European authorities looking to stockpile its antiviral that can counter monkeypox. The drug known as tecovirimat or Tpoxx was approved by the FDA in 2018 as a vaccine for smallpox but was approved by the European Medicines Agency to also act against monkeypox, cowpox and complications from immunization with vaccinia.