Pfiz­er took a Phase III shot at re­pur­pos­ing its old drug silde­nafil as a new com­bi­na­tion ther­a­py for per­sis­tent pul­monary hy­per­ten­sion in in­fants. And failed.

Ap­proved in pill form for erec­tile dys­func­tion (Vi­a­gra) and PAH (Re­va­tio), re­searchers took an IV for­mu­la­tion added to in­haled ni­tric ox­ide in­to a piv­otal tri­al in PPHN for new­borns. The study proved that it was no bet­ter at re­duc­ing treat­ment fail­ure or time on ni­tric ox­ide than ni­tric ox­ide alone.

Pul­monary hy­per­ten­sion in­volves the con­stric­tion of pul­monary ar­ter­ies, which forces the heart to work hard­er to pump blood to the lungs. It’s called per­sis­tent pul­monary hy­per­ten­sion in new­borns, a rare and some­times fa­tal con­di­tion that de­creas­es the flow of oxy­gen as the nor­mal change­up in blood flow at birth fails to oc­cur.

Re­va­tio was ap­proved for PAH 14 years ago and has been wide­ly dis­trib­uted around the globe. That came 7 years af­ter the same ac­tive in­gre­di­ent was ap­proved as Vi­a­gra, now 21 years old in mar­ket­ing years. A com­pa­ny called Novi­tium ob­tained a gener­ic ap­proval for PAH just days ago.

So­cial im­age: Kristof­fer Trip­plaar, AP Im­ages

At PACT Pharma, the lofty goal to unleash a “tsunami” of T cells personalized for each patient has hinged on the ability to correctly identify the neoantigens that form something of a fingerprint for each tumor, and extract the small group of T cells primed to attack the cancer. It still has a long way to go testing a treatment in humans, but the biotech says it has nailed that highly technical piece of the process.

Vivek Ramaswamy’s Myovant $MYOV has closely matched its positive first round of Phase III data for their uterine fibroid drug relugolix, setting up a head-to-head rivalry with pharma giant AbbVie as the little biotech steers to the market with a planned filing in Q4.

Here’s how Myovant plans to prevail over the AbbVie $ABBV empire.

In the study, 71.2% of women receiving once-daily relugolix combination therapy achieved the clinical response they were looking for, compared to only 14.7% in the control arm. The data comfortably reflected the same outcomes in the first Phase III — 73.4% of women receiving once-daily oral relugolix combination therapy achieved the responder criteria compared with 18.9% of women receiving placebo — which will reassure regulators that they are getting the carefully randomized data that qualifies for the FDA’s gold standard for success.

The executive team at Sage $SAGE have skirted another potential pitfall on its way to racking up a big future for its depression drug Zulresso.

Little Marinus Pharmaceuticals $MRNS had sought to challenge the Sage drug with an IV formulation — followed by an oral version — of ganaxolone for postpartum depression. But researchers say their Phase II study failed to positively differentiate itself from a placebo at 28 days — leaving them to hold up “clinically meaningful” data within the first day of administration compared to the control arm.

Roche set out to make a better flu medicine than Tamiflu as that franchise was headed to a generic showdown. Now they’ll see just how well Xofluza stacks up against the mainstay drug after handing off over-the-counter rights in the US to Sanofi.

Sanofi $SNY says it will now step in to negotiate a deal with the FDA to steer Tamiflu into the OTC market, a role that could well involve new studies to ease passage of the drug out of doctor’s hands and into the consumer end of the market. And the French pharma giant will have first dibs over “selected” OTC markets around the world as they push ahead.

The nonprofit Bioethics International has come out with their latest scorecard on data transparency among the big biopharmas in the industry — flagging a few standouts while spotlighting some laggards who are continuing to underperform.

Now in its third year, the nonprofit created a new set of standards with Yale School of Medicine and Stanford Law School to evaluate the track record on trial registration, results reporting, publication and data-sharing practice.

Durect $DRRX got a badly needed shot in the arm Monday morning as Gilead’s busy BD team lined up access to its extended-release platform tech for HIV and hepatitis B.

Gilead, a leader in the HIV sector, is paying a modest $25 million in cash for the right to jump on the platform at Durect, which has been using its technology to come up with an extended-release version of bupivacaine. The FDA rejected that in 2014, but Durect has been working on a comeback.