No­var­tis plots to re­tain hives pa­tients with mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body that out­shines Xo­lair

Af­ter the loss of patent pro­tec­tion on its Roche-part­nered hives ther­a­py Xo­lair, No­var­tis $NVS has found its ex­per­i­men­tal mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body lige­lizum­ab sur­passed Xo­lair in a mid-stage hives tri­al, al­low­ing the com­pa­ny to shep­herd it along to Phase III tri­als.

The block­buster bi­o­log­ic Xo­lair, which is ap­proved for hives as well as al­ler­gic asth­ma, is vul­ner­a­ble to com­pe­ti­tion af­ter los­ing patent pro­tec­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the Unit­ed States and Eu­rope. So far no copy­cats have hit the mar­ket, al­though there at least two are in de­vel­op­ment. In­dia’s Glen­mark re­cent­ly re­port­ed ear­ly-stage da­ta from a US tri­al, while part­ners Sor­ren­to and MabTech are test­ing their ver­sion in an on­go­ing Phase III study in Chi­na.

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