Your at­ten­tion, please: As­traZeneca asks for a mo­ment of rapt si­lence, for a BLA ac­cep­tance?

As­traZeneca $AZN made an odd move this morn­ing for a Big Phar­ma com­pa­ny. It halt­ed trad­ing in its shares to an­nounce that the FDA has ac­cept­ed its BLA for mar­ket­ing its PD-L1 check­point in­hibitor dur­val­um­ab against blad­der can­cer. That’s a small biotech kind of move aimed at gain­ing every­one’s at­ten­tion, but it’s un­der­stand­able in As­traZeneca’s case.

The ac­cep­tance comes just days af­ter the Pfiz­er/Mer­ck KGaA team beat them to the punch with a ri­val check­point, avelum­ab. As­traZeneca has been falling be­hind a line­up of com­peti­tors who are al­ready on the mar­ket, so get­ting beat by the Pfiz­er/Mer­ck KGaA team must have stung con­sid­er­ably.

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