Regenerative medicine company Mesoblast Ltd. plans to raise AU$97 million (US$64.5 million) to conduct additional phase III registration trials for its allogeneic stem cell treatment for steroid-refractory acute graft-vs.-host disease and for chronic back pain, as required by the U.S. FDA.
Reneo Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s last patient visit Oct. 9 in the pivotal study with mavodelpar called Stride – due to yield top-line data in December 2023 – kept interest strong in primary mitochondrial myopathy (PMM), where parties are pursuing development bids by way of assorted strategies.
Electrical stimulation of the spinal cord has restored the ability to walk normally to a patient whose chronic Parkinson’s disease (PD) had led to severe motor deficits, researchers reported in the Nov. 6, 2023, online issue of Nature Medicine.
Failing to meet the primary endpoint in its confirmatory phase III Embark trial, Sarepta Therapeutics Inc.’s gene therapy, Elevidys (delandistrogene moxeparvovec), which received accelerated approval in June and was priced at $3.2 million, has one of three fates in its future, all of which are dependent on how the U.S. FDA perceives the data. Based on secondary endpoints showing statistical significance and a recent positive meeting with the agency, Sarepta could continue to market Elevidys under its current label for 4- and 5-year-old ambulatory Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients; Sarepta is filing the postmarketing requirement needed to transition from accelerated to full approval.
Less than two weeks after getting a thumbs-up from the EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, Santhera Pharmaceutical AG’s vamorolone secured U.S. FDA approval for use in patients, 2 and older, with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). A first-in-class drug, vamorolone, branded Agamree, is expected to offer a safer alternative to the steroid therapy, which the company has said will remain a foundational treatment of DMD, even with the introduction of gene therapies.
Angitia Biopharmaceuticals raised $46 million in a series B round extension, bringing the total raised under the series B to $170 million led by Morningside Group and will enable the company to advance its pipeline of musculoskeletal therapies.
The EMA is standing firm on its refusal to recommend approval of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) treatment Albrioza in Europe after re-examining Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s marketing authorization application and remaining unconvinced that the main study demonstrated the drug effectively slows disease progression.
Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. said it’s exploring all its options in the wake of a Sept. 27 U.S. FDA advisory committee vote, in which the committee overwhelmingly disagreed with the company that the data it presented supported the effectiveness of Nurown (debamestrocel) for the treatment of mild to moderate amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics Inc.’s Nurown got a thumbs down from the U.S. FDA’s Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee Sept. 27, as the committee voted 1-17, with one abstention, that the data presented demonstrated substantial evidence of effectiveness for treatment of mild to moderate amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
How flexible should the U.S. FDA evidentiary standards be for a therapy addressing a significant unmet need in a disease such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)? That’s the question the agency’s Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee will ponder Sept. 27 as it looks at the data for Brainstorm Cell Therapuetics Inc.’s Nurown (debamestrocel), a mesenchymal stromal cell therapy targeting ALS. Nurown is going into the adcom with a bit of a checkered history that includes a refuse-to-file letter and a single phase III trial that failed to demonstrate efficacy for the primary endpoint and all key secondary efficacy endpoints, according to the FDA briefing document.
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