Myovant $MYOV has rounded the final turn in its development race to get relugolix down to the regulatory wire at the FDA. And the biotech joined the virtual crowd at ASCO with the kind of data needed to keep the investor crowd’s attention.

Much of the attention on the drug has been focused on uterine fibroids, where AbbVie just scored a regulatory win for their rival drug Oriahnn (elagolix) as the biotech posted results in prostate cancer at the ASCO meeting.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,700+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

Richard Silverman was left in the dark for the last five years of clinical development of the drug he discovered. The Northwestern University professor found out about the first approval of Lyrica, in the last few days of 2004, like most other people: in the newspaper.

What became one of Pfizer’s top-selling meds, at $5 billion in 2017 global sales before losing patent protection in 2019, started slipping out of his hands when Northwestern licensed it out to Parke-Davis, one of two biotechs that showed interest in developing the drug in the pre-email days, when the university’s two-person tech transfer team had to ship out letters to garner industry appetite.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,700+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

Pfizer has laid out the detailed results behind its boast that etrasimod — the S1P receptor modulator at the center of its $6.7 billion buyout of Arena Pharma — is the winner of the class, potentially leapfrogging an earlier entrant from Bristol Myers Squibb.

Pivotal data from the ELEVATE program in ulcerative colitis — which consists of two Phase III trials, one lasting 52 weeks and the other just 12 weeks — illustrate an “encouraging balance of efficacy and safety,” according to Michael Corbo, chief development officer of inflammation & immunology at Pfizer. The company is presenting the results as a late breaker at Digestive Disease Week.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,700+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

Eli Lilly is looking to expand its footprint in its home Hoosier State by making a major investment in manufacturing.

The pharma is investing $2.1 billion in two new manufacturing sites at Indiana’s LEAP Lebanon Innovation and Research District in Boone County, northwest of Lilly’s headquarters in Indianapolis.

The two new facilities will expand Lilly’s manufacturing network for active ingredients and new therapeutic modalities, including genetic medicines, according to a press release.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,700+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

Dermatology specialty pharma Almirall is making its sales reps smarter. Not with extra training or educational courses, but instead with artificial intelligence tools.

It began a soft launch of a sales rep AI and machine learning platform it calls Polaris last August in one of its 7 US coverage regions. The platform from Aktana gathers information from across Almirall internal sources and external ones – such as claims and prescribing data – to generate insights for reps. Now, instead of spending hours prepping for a sales call, Polaris can generate details about a physician’s preferences, past behaviors and prescription habits for reps in minutes, said Almirall head of commercial operations Vincent Cerio.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,700+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to evolve, pharma companies and manufacturers are exploring how to step up production on antivirals.

Pfizer is planning to expand its Kalamazoo-area facility to increase manufacturing capabilities for the oral Covid-19 antiviral Paxlovid, according to a report from Michigan-based news site MLive. The expansion of the facility, which serves as Pfizer’s largest manufacturing location, is expected to create hundreds of “high-skilled” STEM jobs, MLive reported. No details about the project’s cost and timeline have been released, but according to MLive, Pfizer will announce the details of the expansion at some point in early June.

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 142,700+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

SIGN UP LOG IN