Wel­come Imfinzi: As­traZeneca crash­es the check­point par­ty late with a green light for dur­val­um­ab

And then there were 5.

The FDA hand­ed out its lat­est ap­proval for a PD-L1 check­point in­hibitor on Mon­day af­ter­noon, giv­ing a green light to As­traZeneca to start sell­ing dur­val­um­ab as Imfinzi as a sec­ond-line ther­a­py for metasta­t­ic urothe­lial car­ci­no­ma.

Pas­cal So­ri­ot

The reg­u­la­to­ry OK comes in the wake of ap­provals for Mer­ck, Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb, Roche/Genen­tech and Pfiz­er/Mer­ck KGaA. The bi­ol­o­gy of these new check­point drugs is well un­der­stood now, and the FDA is­sued its ap­proval af­ter a rel­a­tive­ly small, sin­gle-arm study.

Reg­u­la­tors waved this one through af­ter giv­ing dur­val­um­ab a break­through drug des­ig­na­tion and pri­or­i­ty re­view, even though its the third ap­proval for a check­point ther­a­py in blad­der can­cer.

Dur­val­um­ab’s longterm suc­cess is cru­cial to the fu­ture of As­traZeneca and CEO Pas­cal So­ri­ot. Billed as a block­buster-to-be, fol­low­ing a com­mer­cial trail al­ready clear­ly laid out, the big show­down for As­traZeneca comes lat­er in the year, when it rolls out late-stage da­ta on a com­bi­na­tion of its check­point com­bo in its MYS­TIC study, which match­es dur­val­um­ab with treme­li­mum­ab, a CT­LA-4 sim­i­lar to Yer­voy, for lung can­cer.

The ju­ry is still out, though, on how well a CT­LA-4 drug — with all its at­ten­dant tox­i­c­i­ty — will do in this field. That’s one rea­son why Bris­tol-My­ers Squibb re­cent­ly inked a deal with Cy­tomX on a next-gen CT­LA-4 that might prove far bet­ter for pa­tients.

Sea­mus Fer­nan­dez at Leerink not­ed some mod­est ex­pec­ta­tions on this first ap­proval. The up­side lies fur­ther down the road.

Al­though this in­di­ca­tion rep­re­sents a rel­a­tive­ly small op­por­tu­ni­ty for AZN (we fore­cast Imfinzi cap­tur­ing 10% of our es­ti­mat­ed ~$2.3B WW blad­der can­cer mar­ket), the ap­proval will al­low the agent to be­come more fa­mil­iar with on­col­o­gists and should help fa­cil­i­tate fu­ture sBLAs for drug. The ma­jor in­di­ca­tion for Imfinzi re­mains first-line (1L) non-small cell lung can­cer (NSCLC) and we await top-line da­ta from the Phase 3 MYS­TIC tri­al in com­bi­na­tion with treme­li­mum­ab (an­ti-CT­LA-4) ex­pect­ed in mid-2017.

As­traZeneca, mean­while, raised a red flag last week when it de­layed its third-line read­out in the ARC­TIC study of the duo, spurring some sus­pi­cions that it was on track to a trou­bling fail­ure that would have raised se­ri­ous doubts about its fu­ture in the field.

The oth­er ques­tion that many of us have is how many of these PD-1/PD-L1 check­points can be ap­proved be­fore they start slic­ing and dic­ing this mar­ket in­to ever small­er bites. A range of sec­ond-wave check­points are in de­vel­op­ment now, with every­one that’s fi­nanced well enough and in­ter­est­ed in it go­ing af­ter one of their own.

That group in­cludes In­cyte, which has been part­ner­ing with the main­stream check­points in nonex­clu­sive arrange­ments. And the main play­ers, like Mer­ck and Bris­tol-My­ers, are al­ready well along with their own com­bi­na­tion tri­als. Hun­dreds of them.

The ap­proval, though, marks a big win for As­traZeneca, which has made sig­nif­i­cant progress on the on­col­o­gy front in the last few years. They had to have this one to re­main a cred­i­ble ri­val. And they got it.

The FDA has been on a drug ap­proval spree over the last few days. This is the fifth OK for a new chem­i­cal en­ti­ty in the last three work­ing days, bring­ing the year-to-date to­tal to 19. Last year, which saw a big dip in ap­provals, the FDA ap­proved a to­tal of 22 new drugs.

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

RBC Capital Markets’ Healthcare Technology Analyst, Sean Dodge, spotlights a new breed of tech-enabled providers who are rapidly transforming the way clinicians deliver healthcare, and explores the key question: can this accelerating revolution overturn the US healthcare system?

Key points

Tech-enabled healthcare providers are poised to help the US transition to value, not volume, as the basis for reward.
The move to value-based care has policy momentum, but is risky and complex for clinicians.
Outsourced tech specialists are emerging to provide the required expertise, while healthcare and tech are also converging through M&A.
Value-based care remains in its early stages, but the transition is accelerating and represents a huge addressable market.

Lat­est on ul­tra-rare dis­ease ap­proval; Pos­i­tive, if mixed, signs for Bio­gen's ALS drug; Clay Sie­gall finds a new job; and more

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

Over the last four years, we’ve honored 80 women whose extraordinary accomplishments have changed the game in biopharma R&D. You can now nominate someone to be highlighted in this year’s special report. Details are here.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

A panel of outside advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended that the agency grant accelerated approval to Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen despite the drug failing the primary goal of its Phase III study, an endorsement that could pave a path forward for the treatment.

By a 9-0 vote, members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee said there was sufficient evidence that tofersen’s effect on a certain protein associated with ALS is reasonably likely to predict a benefit for patients. But panelists stopped short of advocating for a full approval, voting 3-5 against (with one abstention) and largely citing the failed pivotal study.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

FDA spells out how can­cer drug de­vel­op­ers can use one tri­al for both ac­cel­er­at­ed and full ap­provals

The FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence has been a bright spot within the agency in terms of speeding new treatments to patients. That flexibility was on full display this morning as FDA released new draft guidance spelling out exactly how oncology drug developers can fulfill both the accelerated and full approval’s requirements with just a single randomized controlled trial.

While Congress recently passed legislation that will allow FDA to require confirmatory trials to be recruiting and ongoing prior to granting an accelerated approval, the agency is now making clear that the initial trial used to win the AA, if designed appropriately, can also serve as the trial for converting the accelerated approval into a full approval.

Clay Siegall, Morphimmune CEO

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

Clay Siegall will be back in the CEO seat, taking the helm of a private startup working on targeted cancer therapies.

It’s been almost a year since Siegall resigned from Seagen, the biotech he co-founded and led for more than 20 years, in the wake of domestic violence allegations by his then-wife. His eventual successor, David Epstein, sold the company to Pfizer in a $43 billion deal unveiled last week.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Eu­ro­pean doc­tors di­al up dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with phar­mas, but still lean to­ward in-per­son med meet­ings, study finds

As in-person sales rep access declines in the big five European countries, a corresponding uptick in virtual rep access is happening. It’s not surprising, but it does run counter to pharma companies’ assessment – along with long-held sales rep sway in Europe – that in-person access hadn’t changed.

CMI Media Group and Medscape’s recent study reports that 75% of physicians in the EU5 countries of Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the UK already limit engagements with pharma sales reps, and 25% of those surveyed plan to decrease time with reps.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Judge al­lows ex­pert tes­ti­mo­ny in GSK tri­al al­leg­ing Zan­tac link to can­cer

A California judge will allow a plaintiff in a state court case to introduce expert testimony connecting a potential carcinogen in former blockbuster medicine Zantac to cancer.

The order was handed down on Thursday from state judge Evelio Grillo, who is now allowing both parties to introduce expert testimony in an upcoming trial after what’s known as a Sargon hearing, where a judge determines the admissibility of expert witnesses and expert opinions.

No­vo Nordisk oral semaglu­tide tri­al shows re­duc­tion in blood sug­ar, plus weight loss

Novo Nordisk is testing higher levels of its oral version of its GLP-1, semaglutide, and its type 2 diabetes trial results released today show reductions in blood sugar as well as weight loss.

In the Phase IIIb trial, Novo compared its oral semaglutide in 25 mg and 50 mg doses with the 14 mg version that’s currently the maximum approved dose. The trial looked at how the doses compared when added to a stable dose of one to three oral antidiabetic medicines in people with type 2 diabetes who were in need of an intensified treatment.

Endpoints News

Keep reading Endpoints with a free subscription

Unlock this story instantly and join 163,600+ biopharma pros reading Endpoints daily — and it's free.

Ly­me vac­cine test com­ple­tion is pushed back by a year as Pfiz­er, Val­ne­va say they'll ad­just tri­al

Valneva and Pfizer have adjusted the end date for the Phase III study of their investigational Lyme disease vaccine, pushing it back by a year after issues at a contract researcher led to thousands of US patients being dropped from the test.

In a March 20 update to clinicaltrials.gov, Valneva and Pfizer moved the primary completion date on the trial, called VALOR, from the end of 2024 to the end of 2025.

Endpoints Premium

Premium subscription required

Unlock this article along with other benefits by subscribing to one of our paid plans.