With their third-to-mar­ket spinal mus­cu­lar at­ro­phy drug ris­diplam now cruis­ing on the FDA’s VIP lane to­ward a May de­ci­sion, Roche is think­ing through its pric­ing strat­e­gy.

You can ex­pect them to take a page out of their Hem­li­bra play­book as they tried to lure pa­tients away from No­vo Nordisk and Take­da, Bill An­der­son — CEO of the phar­ma group — told Reuters.

“With Hem­li­bra, we priced at about half of by­pass­ing agent,” An­der­son said in an in­ter­view with the news agency. “We aim to un­der­whelm with our price” with ris­diplam, he added.

They wouldn’t have to go far. No­var­tis’ gene ther­a­py, Zol­gens­ma, is the world’s most ex­pen­sive med­i­cine by one-time cost at $2.1 mil­lion. And while Bio­gen’s Spin­raza has a list price of $750,000 in the first year and $375,000 in sub­se­quent years, the an­nu­al prices could quick­ly add up to the mil­lions for an an­ti­sense oligonu­cleotide pa­tients are sup­posed to take for life.

Un­like the two ri­val ther­a­pies, which are ad­min­is­tered in­tra­venous­ly and in­trathe­cal­ly re­spec­tive­ly, ris­diplam is an oral med­ica­tion to be tak­en dai­ly. By mod­i­fy­ing how the SMN2 gene is spliced, the drug sup­pos­ed­ly in­creas­es func­tion­al SMN pro­tein lev­els in both the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem and pe­riph­er­al tis­sues.

Zol­gens­ma’s ap­proval is al­so lim­it­ed to in­fants up to 2 years old, and an at­tempt to ex­pand in­to old­er pa­tients through in­trathe­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion has been stalled by a par­tial clin­i­cal hold.

Roche’s drug, which it first li­censed from PTC Ther­a­peu­tics, is be­ing tout­ed as ap­plic­a­ble for a broad age range from new­borns to 60-year-olds, though the piv­otal tri­al sub­mit­ted to the FDA en­rolled pa­tients be­tween 2 and 25.

In ad­di­tion to pri­or­i­ty re­view — which gives it a PDU­FA date of May 24 — the drug al­so en­joys the FDA’s or­phan and fast track des­ig­na­tions.

Fewer Approvals, but Neurology Rivals Oncology and Sees Major Innovations

This report, the fourth in our Trinity Drug Index series, outlines key themes and emerging trends in the industry as we progress towards a new world of targeted and innovative products. It provides a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of novel drugs approved by the FDA in 2016, scoring each on its commercial performance, therapeutic value, and R&D investment (Table 1: Drug ranking – Ratings on a 1-5 scale).

For start-up biotechnology companies and resource stretched pharmaceutical organisations, launching a novel product can be challenging. Lean teams can make setting a launch strategy and achieving your commercial goals seem like a colossal undertaking, but can these barriers be transformed into opportunities that work to your brand’s advantage?
We spoke to Managing Consultant Frances Hendry to find out how Blue Latitude Health partnered with a fledgling subsidiary of a pharmaceutical organisation to launch an innovative product in a
complex market.
What does the launch environment look like for this product?
FH: We started working on the product at Phase II and now we’re going into Phase III trials. There is a significant unmet need in this disease area, and everyone is excited about the launch. However, the organisation is still evolving and the team is quite small – naturally this causes a little turbulence.

→ Less than a year ago Gilead’s antiviral remdesivir failed to make the cut as investigators considered a raft of potential drugs that could be used against an Ebola outbreak. But it may gain a new mission with the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, which is popping up now around the world.

Gilead put out a statement saying that they’re now in discussions with health officials in the US and China about testing their NUC against the virus. It’s the latest in a growing lineup of biopharma companies that are marshaling R&D forces to see if they can come up with a vaccine or therapy to blunt the spread of the virus, which has now sickened hundreds, killed at least 17 people and led the Chinese government to start quarantining cities.

Back at the beginning of 2015, Deerfield Management co-led a $10 million Series C for a private gene therapy startup, reshaping the company and bringing in new leaders to pave way for an IPO just a year later.

Fast forward four more years and the startup, AveXis, is now a subsidiary of Novartis marketing the second-ever gene therapy to be approved in the US.

For its part, Deerfield has also grown more comfortable and ambitious about the nascent field. And the investment firm is now putting down its biggest bet yet: a $1.1 billion contract development and manufacturing facility to produce everything one needs for cell and gene therapy — faster and better than how it’s currently done.

Different therapeutic traits brandished by the three approved therapies for sickle cell disease all extend life expectancy, but their impact on quality of life is uncertain and their long-term cost-effectiveness is not up to scratch according to the thresholds considered reasonable by ICER, the non-profit concluded in a draft guidance report on Thursday.

Sickle cell disease (SCD), which encompasses a group of inherited red blood cell disorders that typically afflict those of African ancestry, impacts hemoglobin — and is characterized by episodes of searing pain as well as organ damage.