In a lengthy review document and a pair of memos from top officials, the FDA released on Tuesday night its most detailed argument yet for approving Biogen’s intensely controversial Alzheimer’s drug aducanumab.

The documents amount to an agency attempt to quench the firestorm their decision kindled, as outside advisors members resigned and experts warned that an unproven drug now could stretch Medicare’s budget to a breaking point. Ultimately, the documents show how CDER director Patrizia Cavazzoni and Office of New Drugs director Peter Stein both concurred with FDA neuroscience head Billy Dunn on the accelerated approval while the staff at FDA’s Office of Biostatistics did not think an approval was warranted.

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Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

A return to in-person conferences also marks a return to on-the-ground reporting. My colleagues Beth Synder Bulik and Nicole DeFeudis were on-site at Cannes Lions, bringing live coverage of pharma’s presence at the ad festival — accompanied by photos from Clara Bui, our virtual producer, that bring you right to the scene. You can find a recap (and links to all the stories) below.

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AstraZeneca’s first consumer ad for Evusheld is also a first for drugs that have been granted emergency use authorizations during the pandemic.

The first DTC ad for a medicine under emergency approval, the Evusheld campaign launching this week aims to raise awareness among immunocompromised patients — and spur more use.

Evusheld nabbed emergency authorization in December, however, despite millions of immunocompromised people looking for a solution and now more widespread availability of the drug.

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The EMA’s human medicines committee on Friday recommended three new drugs for approval or conditional approval, even as their US counterparts have rejected these three for various reasons.

In a major move, CHMP offered a thumbs-up to a conditional marketing authorization for the first gene therapy to treat severe hemophilia A, although the agency cautioned that it’s so far unknown how long the effects of infusion will last.

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Sarepta Therapeutics’ next-gen Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug has been hit with a clinical hold after investigators flagged a serious case of low magnesium levels in one patient’s blood.

Screening and dosing will be halted in what is known as Part B of the Phase II MOMENTUM study, which has enrolled about half of the planned patients. Sarepta said it will be submitting information on all cases of the condition, known as hypomagnesemia, per the FDA’s request and proposing some changes to the risk mitigation and safety monitoring plan.

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Although it’s exceedingly rare for the FDA to rescind a breakthrough designation once it’s granted, there has been a recent uptick — as in 2020 and 2021 combined, the agency rescinded 17 BTDs, compared to just 18 rescinded from 2015 to 2019 combined.

Protagonist Therapeutics saw this reality up close and personal in April after a clinical hold lifted on its experimental blood cancer drug, as the company revealed that the FDA sought to revoke the BTD. The decision, Protagonist says, stems from “observed malignancies” related to the hold, initially imposed in September 2021.

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