→ The EMA of­fi­cial­ly said good­bye to its Ca­nary Wharf head­quar­ters in Lon­don on Fri­day, to set up shop in Am­s­ter­dam — a de­ci­sion trig­gered by Britain’s 2016 de­ci­sion to leave the EU.

To­day we are clos­ing our Lon­don of­fices af­ter al­most a quar­ter of a cen­tu­ry. Thank you, Lon­don for be­ing such a gra­cious host! https://t.co/R8LXjfzvp3 pic.twit­ter.com/8abqM­cbROJ

— EU Med­i­cines Agency (@EMA_News) March 1, 2019

→ The EU reg­u­la­tor al­so is­sued pos­i­tive rec­om­men­da­tions for a slate of treat­ments, list­ed be­low:

EMA’s hu­man med­i­cines com­mit­tee rec­om­mends 8 #med­i­cines for ap­proval at its Feb­ru­ary 2019 meet­ing https://t.co/VCEd­e­qi­Aar #CHMP pic.twit­ter.com/0Z1cC­N­fkng

— EU Med­i­cines Agency (@EMA_News) March 1, 2019

• Sanofi/Re­gen­eron‘s Dupix­ent for se­vere asth­ma, set­ting up the ex­pan­sion of the med­i­cine’s la­bel, which cur­rent­ly cov­ers atopic der­mati­tis
• Sanofi $SNY had an­oth­er en­dorse­ment, for its di­a­betes drug so­tagliflozin, to be sold un­der the brand name Zyn­quista
• Bio­Marin Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals $BM­RN has won back­ing for peg­valiase, which has been dubbed Pa­lynz­iq, for phenylke­tonuria, a rare but po­ten­tial­ly se­ri­ous in­her­it­ed meta­bol­ic dis­ease
• The agency en­dorsed grant­i­ng a con­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing au­tho­riza­tion for Akcea’s volane­sors­en — to be sold as Waylivra — as the first med­i­cine to treat fa­mil­ial chy­lomi­cron­aemia syn­drome, a rare ge­net­ic dis­ease that thwarts the body from break­ing down fats
• An­oth­er con­di­tion ap­proval was rec­om­mend­ed for Por­to­la Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals’ $PT­LA an­dex­anet al­fa, brand­ed as On­dexxya — an an­ti­dote for pa­tients on cer­tain clot-fight­ers, when the use of the an­ti­co­ag­u­lants leads to life-threat­en­ing or un­con­trolled bleed­ing
• Ab­b­Vie $AB­BV se­cured rec­om­men­da­tion for risankizum­ab — brand­ed as Skyrizi — for plaque pso­ri­a­sis

These rec­om­men­da­tions fol­lowed two oth­ers from Thurs­day:

• GSK’s $GSK zanamivir — to be sold as Dec­to­va— for com­pli­cat­ed and po­ten­tial­ly life-threat­en­ing in­fluen­za
• Pfiz­er $PFE se­cured back­ing for con­di­tion­al ap­proval of lor­la­tinib — brand­ed as Lorvi­qua — to treat a form of non-small cell lung can­cer

→ Un­der fire from Star­board and Welling­ton — which have made their op­po­si­tion against the $74 bil­lion buy­out of Cel­gene $CELG abun­dant­ly clear — Bris­tol-My­ers $BMY has been try­ing to shore up in­vestor sup­port be­hind-the-scenes, CN­BC re­port­ed on Fri­day. The re­port sug­gest­ed Bris­tol had sent ex­ec­u­tives to New York to meet with in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors sev­er­al times over the last two weeks and met with in­vestors in Boston on Wednes­day and Thurs­day, cit­ing a per­son briefed on the meet­ings.

→  UK-based AdoRx Ther­a­peu­tics has tied up with J&J $JNJ to de­vel­op lung can­cer drugs in a deal with undis­closed fi­nan­cial terms.

Over the past 10 years I’ve made a point of getting to know the Golden Triangle and the special role the UK biopharma industry plays there in drug development. The concentration of world class research institutes, some of the most accomplished scientists I’ve ever seen at work and a rising tide of global investment cash leaves an impression that there’s much, much more to come as biotech hubs are birthed and nurtured.

Aclaris Therapeutics has found a way to get rid of the warts and all.

The company — which earlier this month decided to focus on its arsenal of kinase inhibitors — on Monday unveiled positive data from a pivotal study testing its lead experimental drug for use in common warts.

The drug, A-101, was tested in a 502-patient study called THWART-2 — patients enrolled had one to six warts before qualifying for the trial. Patients either self-administered A-101 topical solution or a vehicle twice a week over a two-month period. A higher proportion of patients on the drug (a potent hydrogen peroxide topical solution) saw their warts disappear at day 60, versus the vehicle (p<0.0001) — meeting the main goal of the study.  Each secondary endpoint also emerged in favor of A-101, the company said.

Psychedelics have experienced a renaissance in recent years amid a torrent of preclinical and clinical research suggesting it might provide a path to treat mood disorders conventional remedies have only scraped at. Now a preclinical trial from a young biotech suggests at least one psychedelic compound has effects beyond the mind, and — if you believe the still very, very early hype — could provide the first single remedy for some of the main complications of obesity.

Acceleron is scrapping a muscular dystrophy development program underway for its number 2 drug in the pipeline after pouring over some failed mid-stage secondary data.

Gone is the ACE-083 project in patients with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. Their drug hit the primary endpoint on building muscle but flopped on key secondaries for functional improvements in patients, which execs felt was vital to the drug’s success.