Af­ter re­port­ing pos­i­tive da­ta in non-ra­di­ograph­ic ax­i­al spondy­loarthri­tis last month, No­var­tis’ block­buster Cosen­tyx was dealt a set­back on Fri­day.

In the 52-week EX­CEED tri­al in 800 bi­o­log­ic-naïve ac­tive pso­ri­at­ic arthri­tis pa­tients, the IL-17A drug was test­ed against Ab­b­Vie’s flag­ship Hu­mi­ra. The main goal of the study was to show Cosen­tyx was sta­tis­ti­cal­ly su­pe­ri­or us­ing re­sponse rates to ACR20, a stan­dard mea­sure that looks for a 20% re­cov­ery in the num­ber of ten­der and num­ber of swollen joints, and a 20% im­prove­ment in three oth­er cat­e­gories at week 52.

Al­though Cosen­tyx monother­a­py re­sult­ed in high­er re­sults ver­sus Hu­mi­ra, it “nar­row­ly” missed the main goal of sta­tis­ti­cal su­pe­ri­or­i­ty. De­tailed da­ta will be pre­sent­ed at a lat­er date.

Cosen­tyx — ap­proved for pso­ri­at­ic arthri­tis, plaque pso­ri­a­sis and anky­los­ing spondyli­tis — has been No­var­tis’ biggest sell­er in the first nine months of 2019, gen­er­at­ing about $2.6 bil­lion in sales over the pe­ri­od. It in­hibits a pro­tein called IL-17A from bind­ing to its re­cep­tor and was the first-ever ap­proved such ther­a­py to se­cure ap­proval, launch­ing in 2015.

Since then, ri­vals have emerged, in­clud­ing Eli Lil­ly’s IL-17A ther­a­py Taltz, and J&J’s an­ti-IL23 Trem­fya. Bausch Health’s (for­mer­ly Valeant’s) Siliq tar­gets IL-17RA and is ap­proved for plaque pso­ri­a­sis, but is cur­rent­ly be­ing eval­u­at­ed for pso­ri­at­ic arthri­tis.

For Ab­b­Vie, its TNF in­hibitor Hu­mi­ra — ap­proved for an ar­ray of au­toim­mune con­di­tions — has been the gift that keeps giv­ing. The drug — which hit a stu­pen­dous $20 bil­lion in sales last year, earn­ing it the crown of the world’s best sell­ing ther­a­py — has be­gun to see ero­sion in Eu­ro­pean sales due to biosim­i­lar com­pe­ti­tion, and a US patent cliff is loom­ing.

In Au­gust, Ab­b­Vie’s JAK in­hibitor upadac­i­tinib se­cured FDA ap­proval as part of the drug­mak­er’s post-Hu­mi­ra plans.  But the class of drugs has been blight­ed by safe­ty con­cerns — con­se­quent­ly, upadac­i­tinib’s ap­proval was ac­com­pa­nied by a black box warn­ing.  Mean­while, Ab­b­Vie has al­so planned for a post-Hu­mi­ra world with a $63 bil­lion deal to swal­low Al­ler­gan and its key­stone Botox fran­chise.

In the insular world of biotech, a spectacular failure can sometimes stay on any executive’s record for a long time. But for David Meek, the man at the helm of FerGene’s recent implosion, two questionable exits made way for what could be an excellent rebound.

Meek, most recently FerGene’s CEO and a past head at Ipsen, has become CEO at Mirati Therapeutics, taking the reins from founding CEO Charles Baum, who will step over into the role of president and head of R&D, according to a release.

After a busy weekend at #ESMO21, which included a big readout for its KRAS drug adagrasib in colon cancer, Mirati Therapeutics is ready to keep the pressure on competitor Amgen with lung cancer data that will undergird an upcoming filing.

In topline results from a Phase II cohort of its KRYSTAL-1 study, adagrasib posted a response rate of 43% in second-line-or-later patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer containing a KRAS-G12C mutation, Mirati said Monday.

Exelixis added a thyroid cancer indication to its super-seller Cabometyx’s label on Friday — months before the FDA was expected to make a decision, and days before the company was set to unveil the final data at #ESMO21.

At a median follow-up of 10.1 months, differentiated thyroid cancer patients treated with Cabometyx (cabozantinib) lived a median of 11 months without their disease worsening, compared to just 1.9 months for patients given a placebo, Exelixis said on Monday.

For a first-time fund, Jeito Capital talks a lot about continuity.

Rafaèle Tordjman had spotlighted that concept ever since she started building the firm in 2018, promising to go the extra mile(s) with biotech entrepreneurs while pushing them to reach patients faster.

Coincidentally, the lack of continuity was one of the sore spots listed in a report about the European healthcare sector published that same year by the European Investment Bank — whose fund is one of the LPs, alongside the American pension fund Teacher Retirement System of Texas and Singapore’s Temasek, to help Jeito close its first fund at $630 million (€534 million). As previously reported, Sanofi had chimed in €50 million, marking its first investment in a French life sciences fund.