Roche’s ‘suc­cess’ with its big Per­je­ta/Her­ceptin PhI­II falls flat at AS­CO, but it’s a boost for Puma

San­dra Horn­ing

CHICA­GO — Roche her­ald­ed a suc­cess for its close­ly-watched com­bi­na­tion breast can­cer study of Per­je­ta and Her­ceptin at AS­CO on Mon­day, but once the da­ta came in­to fo­cus there didn’t seem to be much to cheer about at the phar­ma gi­ant.

The two drugs to­geth­er per­formed bet­ter than Her­ceptin alone in im­prov­ing pa­tients’ odds of pre­vent­ing a re­cur­rence of the dis­ease — by a mar­gin of 0.9%. Af­ter three years of ther­a­py the score was 94.1% sur­vival in the com­bo arm with a 93.2% score for Her­ceptin.

“The goal of ad­ju­vant treat­ment is to help each per­son with can­cer have the best chance of a cure, and we come clos­er to this goal with each ad­vance,” said San­dra Horn­ing, chief med­ical of­fi­cer and head of glob­al prod­uct de­vel­op­ment. “In the APHIN­I­TY study, the Per­je­ta-based reg­i­men im­proved up­on the high bar set by Her­ceptin in peo­ple with HER2-pos­i­tive ear­ly breast can­cer. We look for­ward to work­ing with glob­al health au­thor­i­ties to bring this treat­ment op­tion to pa­tients.”

The new cock­tail ap­proach will cost sig­nif­i­cant­ly more than Her­ceptin alone, and that won’t sit well with pay­ers. Roche had been hop­ing to shore up its block­buster Her­ceptin fran­chise as that drug faces biosim­i­lar com­pe­ti­tion.

The big win­ner in all this? Puma Biotech, which saw its shares $PBYI shoot up 18% Mon­day morn­ing.

Their new drug ner­a­tinib demon­strat­ed a 34% re­duc­tion in the risk of re­cur­rence or death. It takes a leap to do these kinds of cross-tri­al analy­ses that dri­ve drug de­vel­op­ers a tad crazy now and then, but Wall Street an­a­lysts were quick to give Puma a thumbs up, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter it just hand­i­ly won an FDA pan­el vote en­dors­ing an ap­proval.

Forge Bi­o­log­ics’ cGMP Com­pli­ant and Com­mer­cial­ly Vi­able Be­spoke Affin­i­ty Chro­matog­ra­phy Plat­form

Forge Biologics has developed a bespoke affinity chromatography platform approach that factors in unique vector combinations to streamline development timelines and assist our clients in efficiently entering the clinic. By leveraging our experience with natural and novel serotypes and transgene conformations, we are able to accelerate affinity chromatography development by nearly 3-fold. Many downstream purification models are serotype-dependent, demanding unique and time-consuming development strategies for each AAV gene therapy product1. With the increasing demand to propel AAV gene therapies to market, platform purification methods that support commercial-scale manufacturing of high-quality vectors with excellent safety and efficacy profiles are essential.

Feng Zhang (Susan Walsh/AP Images)

In search of new way to de­liv­er gene ed­i­tors, CRISPR pi­o­neer turns to mol­e­c­u­lar sy­ringes

Bug bacteria are ruthless.

Some soil bacteria have evolved tiny, but deadly injection systems that attach to insect cells, perforate them and release toxins inside — killing a bug in just a few days’ time. Scientists, on the other hand, want to leverage that system to deliver medicines.

In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, MIT CRISPR researcher Feng Zhang and his lab describe how they engineered these syringes made by bacteria to deliver potential therapies like toxins that kill cancer cells and gene editors. With the help of an AI program, they developed syringes that can load proteins of their choice and selectively target human cells.

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Luke Miels, GSK chief commercial officer

GSK picks up Scynex­is' FDA-ap­proved an­ti­fun­gal drug for $90M up­front

GSK is dishing out $90 million cash to add an antifungal drug to its commercial portfolio, in a deal spotlighting the pharma giant’s growing focus on infectious diseases.

The upfront will lock in an exclusive license to Scynexis’ Brexafemme, which was approved in 2021 to treat a yeast infection known as vulvovaginal candidiasis, except in China and certain other countries where Scynexis already out-licensed the drug.

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See­los Ther­a­peu­tics 'tem­porar­i­ly' stops study in rare neu­ro dis­or­der for busi­ness rea­sons

Microcap biotech Seelos Therapeutics is halting enrollment of its study in spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (also known as Machado-Joseph disease) because of “financial considerations,” and in order to focus on other studies, the company said today, adding that the pause would be temporary.

The study will continue with the patients who have already enrolled, and the data from them will be used to decide whether to continue enrolling others in the future.

Alec­tor cuts 11% of work­force as it dou­bles down on late-stage neu­ro pro­grams part­nered with GSK, Ab­b­Vie

A month after revealing plans to concentrate on its late-stage immuno-neurology pipeline, Alector is trimming its headcount by 11%.

The layoffs will impact around 30 employees across the organization, the company disclosed in an SEC filing, adding that the plan will “better align the company’s resources” with the new strategy. With $712.9 million in cash, cash equivalents and investments as of the end of 2022, Alector believes the reserves will now get it through 2025.

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Mathai Mammen, FogPharma's next CEO

Math­ai Mam­men hands in J&J's R&D keys to lead Greg Ver­dine’s Fog­Phar­ma 

In the early 1990s, Mathai Mammen was a teaching assistant in Greg Verdine’s Science B46 course at Harvard. In June, the former R&D head at Johnson & Johnson will succeed Verdine as CEO, president and chair of FogPharma, the same month the seven-year-old biotech kickstarts its first clinical trial.

After leading R&D at one of the largest drugmakers in the world, taking the company through more than half a dozen drug approvals in the past few years, not to mention a Covid-19 vaccine race, Mammen departed J&J last month and will take the helm of a Cambridge, MA biotech attempting to go after what Verdine calls the “true emperor of all oncogenes” — beta-catenin.

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J&J bows out of RSV vac­cine race, end­ing PhI­II study and ced­ing to Pfiz­er, GSK

Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday morning it is ending development of its adult RSV vaccine that was in the middle of a 27,200-patient trial, giving up a big slice of what’s expected to be the next multibillion-dollar pharma market.

The decision came down to the shifting RSV “competitive landscape,” a company spokesperson tells Endpoints News, adding the “breadth of options” was much different than when J&J first started its pivotal study. The spokesperson declined to comment on the Phase III data, saying only the shot is undergoing an “ongoing assessment.”

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No longer ‘dead or just hi­ber­nat­ing,’ drug­mak­ers re­turn to heart med­i­cines

In 2015, now-FDA Commissioner Robert Califf joined industry, academic and regulatory representatives in Washington to discuss why more drugs weren’t in development for cardiovascular diseases, the leading US cause of death and once a mainstay of pharmaceutical industry blockbusters.

The group pointed to many reasons. Clinical trials could take years and testing was expensive. Wide availability of generic drugs made the commercial prospects uncertain. Their paper title summed up the mood: “Cardiovascular Drug Development: Is it Dead or Just Hibernating?”

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Mihael Polymeropoulos, Vanda Pharmaceuticals CEO

Van­da wins court case against FDA over dis­clo­sure of CRL de­tails for sleep drug

DC District Court Judge Christopher Cooper today granted Vanda Pharma’s request to require the FDA to disclose more info on the complete response letter for its sleep disorder drug Hetlioz.

The melatonin receptor agonist is approved by the FDA to treat non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder, a circadian rhythm disorder. But in 2018 Vanda filed a supplemental application to market Hetlioz as a treatment for jet lag, which the FDA rejected in August 2019, with few details on what Vanda needed to correct course, according to the company.