After almost 30 years in business, Sangamo Therapeutics Inc. is finally nearing a BLA filing for one of its programs. But the company, wounded by the recent loss of alliances with Biogen Inc. and Novartis AG, is also running out of cash and investor interest – and it badly needs a new deal to stay afloat.
Clene Inc. plans to sit down in the third quarter of this year with the U.S. FDA for talks about approval for gold nanocrystal suspension CNM-Au8, bolstered by favorable biomarker findings in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) from the phase II/III Healey ALS platform trial – along with a sizeable time-to-event and survival data package that should drive the conversation.
Patients with an aggressive form of lymphoma who have failed prior therapies now have a new option for treatment with the U.S. FDA’s accelerated approval of Columvi (glofitamab-gxbm), which was granted under priority review a few weeks ahead of the July 1 PDUFA date.
The U.S. FDA’s citizen’s petition process doesn’t always yield the desired outcome, but the agency must nonetheless respond to these petitions. Sonex Health Inc., has petitioned the FDA to rethink a proposal to reclassify the company’s SX-One device for treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome, an unusual instance in which a medical device maker has resisted a proposal to make a device exempt from regulatory requirements.
A committee of the U.S. House of Representatives wrapped up business in a late-running June 14 markup of spending bills that would give the U.S. FDA roughly $6.6 billion to work with in fiscal 2024. However, the final bill omits language in the manager’s mark that had called on the FDA to engage in rulemaking or guidance development for lab-developed tests, but the FDA made up for that by adding a proposal to engage in rulemaking for LDTs in its regulatory agenda.
In their continuing battle against high prescription drug prices, U.S. lawmakers are firing yet another volley at the middlemen – this time to delink their administrative fees from drug prices. Several members of the Senate Finance Committee, including the leadership, introduced the bipartisan Patients Before Middlemen Act June 14 with the intent of wrapping it into a larger drug pricing legislative package the committee plans to complete over the next few months.
Eli Lilly and Co.’s phase II data with LY-3462817 (peresolimab), a monoclonal antibody (MAb) that functions as a PD-1 agonist for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), juiced hopes for the approach being tried by a handful of firms.
With the drug already under review by the U.S. FDA for dry eye disease (DED), Aldeyra Therapeutics Inc.’s reproxalap hit statistical significance in the second phase III study for allergic conjunctivitis (AC), and the firm is mulling what CEO Todd Brady called the “high-class problem” of how to best commercialize the product. A partner may help puzzle that out.
A higher rate than expected of serious bleeding, including five deaths, in ovarian cancer patients receiving upifitamab rilsodotin (UpRi) led the U.S. FDA to place a partial clinical hold on two trials, possibly delaying Mersana Therapeutics Inc.’s BLA filing targeted for later this year.
The death of a patient caused Seattle Children's to pause its phase I study of relapsed/refractory pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML). It’s another hitch in the world of ground-breaking CAR T treatments that can have a serious downside.