Crushed by weak data for what had been their lead drug, Neon Therapeutics is being bought for parts this morning.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,000+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.
In the context of today’s global economic environment, there is an increasing need to work smarter, faster and leaner across all facets of the life sciences industry. This is particularly true for small and mid-sized biotech companies, many of which are facing declining valuations and competing for increasingly limited funding to propel their science forward. It is important to recognize that within this framework, many of these smaller companies already find themselves resource-challenged to design and manage clinical studies themselves because they don’t have large teams or in-house experts in navigating the various aspects of the drug development journey. This can be particularly challenging for the most complex and difficult to treat diseases where no previous pathway exists and patients are urgently awaiting breakthroughs.
Since losing a controversial court case over orphan drug exclusivity last year, the FDA’s Office of Orphan Products Development has remained entirely silent on orphan exclusivity for any product approved since last November, leaving many sponsors in limbo on what to expect.
That silence means that for more than 70 orphan-designated indications for more than 60 products, OOPD has issued no public determination on the seven-year orphan exclusivity in the Orange Book, and no new listings of orphan exclusivity appear in OOPD’s searchable database, as highlighted recently by George O’Brien, a partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington, DC office.
TherapeuticsMD, a women’s health company whose one-time billion-dollar valuation seems a distant memory as its blockbuster aspirations petered out, is finally cashing out.
Australia’s Mayne Pharma is paying $140 million upfront to license essentially TherapeuticsMD’s whole portfolio, including two prescription drugs that treat conditions relating to menopause, a contraceptive vaginal ring as well as its prescription prenatal vitamin brands.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,000+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.
Pfizer is continuing its run of manufacturing site expansions with two new large investments in the US and Europe.
The New York-based pharma giant’s site in Kalamazoo, MI, has seen a lot of attention over the past year. As a major piece of the manufacturing network for Covid-19 vaccines and antivirals, Pfizer is gearing up to place more money into the site. Pfizer announced it will place $750 million into the facility, mainly to establish “modular aseptic processing” (MAP) production and create around 300 jobs at the site.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,000+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.
The prognosis is poor for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients. Novartis wants to change that by making its recently approved Pluvicto available to patients earlier in their course of treatment.
The Swiss pharma giant unveiled Phase III results Monday suggesting that Pluvicto was able to halt disease progression in certain prostate cancer patients when administered after androgen-receptor pathway inhibitor (ARPI) therapy, but without prior taxane-based chemotherapy. The drug is currently approved for patients after they’ve received both ARPI and chemo.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,000+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.
Horizon Therapeutics announced last week that it was in talks with three pharmaceutical giants that could take over the company. You can now remove one of them from the equation.
J&J’s Janssen, after Horizon reported its initial involvement in early discussions to acquire the rare disease biotech, issued a statement Saturday that said Janssen “does not intend to make an offer for Horizon,” and that Janssen is bound by restrictions set in Rule 2.8 of the Irish Takeover Rules. These rules are in place for any company interested in taking over Irish companies, with Horizon Therapeutics currently based in Dublin.
Unlock this story instantly and join 154,000+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.
The first generation of personalized CAR-T therapies made big waves in the treatment of lymphoma for their stunning efficacy. Nkarta is hoping its off-the-shelf natural killer cell approach will stand out on safety — while keeping some of those impressive numbers on responses.
In a new update from its Phase I dose escalation study, the South San Francisco-based biotech reported that seven out of 10 patients treated with the highest doses of its NK cell therapy, NKX019, achieved a complete response, translating to a complete response rate of 70%.
A biotech centered on treating fibrosis — born out of Mass General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital — has received a financial boost.
According to an SEC filing, the company has raised $31,761,186 in its latest funding round, which includes 17 investors. The filing lists six names attached to the company, including Meredith Fisher, a partner at Mass General Brigham Ventures and Mediar’s acting CEO.
We now know why Verve’s lead candidate was placed on hold last month by US regulators.
In an SEC filing, Verve laid out the FDA’s conditions for lifting the hold on its lead therapy, VERVE-101. That includes submitting preclinical data about potency differences in human versus non-human cells, risks of gene editing germline cells, and off-target analyses in non-hepatocyte cell types.
The FDA also wants clinical data from the ongoing Heart-1 trial, and to modify the trial protocol in the US to add additional contraceptive measures and increase the length of a staggering interval between the dosing of participants.