Savara watched their stock crater in June as they an­nounced a late-stage fail­ure on their lead com­pound. But now, based on the same Phase III tri­al, the FDA is giv­ing the biotech and its rare lung dis­ease drug break­through ther­a­py des­ig­na­tion.

The des­ig­na­tion comes for Mol­gradex, an in­halant meant to treat au­toim­mune pul­monary alve­o­lar pro­teinosis (aPAP). It was the lead com­pound in Savara’s 2016 buy­out of Seren­dex. The dis­ease is caused by au­toan­ti­bod­ies that neu­tral­ize a pro­tein called GM-CSF in the lungs, and the in­halant re­plen­ish­es the lungs with a re­com­bi­nant form of the pro­tein.

Savara said in June that the drug had failed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove oxy­gen lev­els in tri­al pa­tients’ alve­o­lar, the parts of the lung ob­struct­ed in PAP pa­tients. Savara tried to sal­vage the study, point­ing to sec­ondary and “ex­plorato­ry” end­points and blam­ing the pri­ma­ry fail­ure on an un­ex­pect­ed­ly high place­bo ef­fect. In­vestors didn’t buy it, tank­ing their stock price $SVRA 75%.

The FDA, though, ap­pears to think there’s a sto­ry there. It’s im­pos­si­ble to know the agency’s think­ing, but de­tailed slides Savara re­leased this fall em­pha­sized “a pat­tern of im­prove­ment” on sev­er­al met­rics in the 139-per­son tri­al and ar­gued that the “to­tal­i­ty of out­come da­ta” sup­port Mol­gradex over place­bo.

That da­ta in­clud­ed sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments on the Saint Georges Res­pi­ra­to­ry Ques­tion­naire and CT scans. The biotech al­so ar­gued the pri­ma­ry end­point (tech­ni­cal­ly called A-aDO2), as well as a walk­ing test called 6MWT, he­mo­glo­bin lev­els and the time be­fore res­cue surgery “trend­ed” to­ward sig­nif­i­cance.

Bruce Trap­nell

Mol­gradex was “ef­fec­tive as shown by changes in lung pathol­o­gy, phys­i­ol­o­gy, health sta­tus, func­tion,” lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor Bruce Trap­nell wrote.

That still leaves a lot of ques­tions about the ben­e­fit for pa­tients, and though in­vestors came back with the break­through des­ig­na­tion, they didn’t re­turn Savara to its pre-June sta­tus. The stock near­ly tripled on Mon­day, from $1.73 per share to $4.91. But that’s still less than half of the $10.57 price on June 12.

The news may al­so bol­ster con­fi­dence in Savara’s oth­er pro­grams. Those in­clude a Phase II tri­al ap­ply­ing Mol­gradex to non­tu­ber­cu­lous my­cobac­te­ria, with re­sults ex­pect­ed ear­ly this year, and a now-en­rolling study ap­ply­ing the drug to non­tu­ber­cu­lous my­cobac­te­ria in cys­tic fi­bro­sis pa­tients. There’s al­so a van­comycin in­halant for MR­SA in­fec­tions in CF pa­tients, with Phase III re­sults ex­pect­ed in about a year.

Since losing a controversial court case over orphan drug exclusivity last year, the FDA’s Office of Orphan Products Development has remained entirely silent on orphan exclusivity for any product approved since last November, leaving many sponsors in limbo on what to expect.

That silence means that for more than 70 orphan-designated indications for more than 60 products, OOPD has issued no public determination on the seven-year orphan exclusivity in the Orange Book, and no new listings of orphan exclusivity appear in OOPD’s searchable database, as highlighted recently by George O’Brien, a partner in Mayer Brown’s Washington, DC office.

As the global biologics market is expected to hit nearly the half-trillion-dollar mark this year, new JAMA research points to the importance of timely biosimilar entry, particularly as fewer biosimilars are entering the US than in Europe, and as monthly treatment costs for biosimilars were “substantially higher” in the US compared with Germany and Switzerland.

Among the three countries, biosimilar market share at launch was highest in Germany, but increased at the fastest rate in the US, the authors from the University of Zurich’s Institute of Law wrote in JAMA Network Open today.

The European Medicines Agency said Friday that it’s pulling from all European markets pholcodine-containing medicines, which are an opioid used in adults and children for the treatment of dry cough and in combo with other drugs as a treatment for cold and flu.

The decision to pull the medicines comes as the EMA points to the results from the recent ALPHO study, which show that use of pholcodine during the 12 months preceding anesthesia is linked to a risk of an anaphylactic reaction related to the neuromuscular blocking agents (NMBAs) used (with an adjusted OR of 4.2, and a 95% confidence interval of 2.5 to 6.9).

It is no secret that drug shortages have been prevalent in 2022. Several major drug products, such as amoxicillin and Adderall, have been in short supply for several months and have led to members of Congress applying pressure on the FDA and HHS to resolve the situation.

Speaking at a webinar hosted by the Alliance for a Stronger FDA, Valerie Jensen, the associate director of the FDA’s Drug Shortage Staff, noted both the rise in quality-related issues and increased demand for some products. She called on companies to report such demand increases, even though they are not currently required to do so.