Coming on the heels of an advisory committee in which the U.S. FDA and its independent advisers grappled with trying to fit an ultra-rare disease development program into the confines of the agency’s “significant evidence” requirements, an Oct. 16 public meeting on a Rare Disease Innovation Hub the agency is setting up seemed like a welcome step in the right direction for rare disease patients, their caregivers and companies working in the space.
Novocure GmbH secured U.S. FDA approval for Optune Lua, a wearable device that delivers alternating electric fields or tumor treating fields that kill cancer cells. Indicated for use with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors or docetaxel in the second or subsequent line for the treatment of metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer following the failure of platinum-based regimens, the approval was driven by the significant improvement in overall survival rates seen in the LUNAR pivotal study for Optune Lua.
The U.S. Medicare program has a notorious problem with regard to coverage of digital products and software as a service, but the agency is dependent on Congress to add new benefit categories via legislation.
The U.S. FDA granted Momentis Surgical Ltd. 510(k) clearance for its Anovo robotic surgical platform for use in single site, abdominal access ventral hernia repairs. The U.S. regulatory agency also gave the greenlight to CMR Surgical Ltd.’s Versius system for use in cholecystectomy, in a sign of the growing market for smaller, more portable robotic devices to assist in minimally invasive procedures.
Gene and cell therapies will drive innovation for the next 10 years, Claus Zieler, the chief commercial officer at Astellas Pharma Inc., said in the newest episode of the BioWorld Insider podcast. Developers are on the cusp of breakthroughs because a gene can now be replaced “and that means we can potentially cure a disease rather than intervening in a disease.”
SK Bioscience Co. Ltd., of Seongnam-si, South Korea, said Oct. 8 that it will acquire a $3 million stake in Fina Biosolutions LLC to become the first and sole strategic investor of the Rockville, Md.-based vaccine specialist. For SK Bioscience, the investment is slated to boost its vaccine R&D capabilities, the company said, which currently includes manufacturing of pneumococcal and typhoid conjugate vaccines.
Gilead Sciences Inc. terminated a potential $785 million licensing deal with Yuhan Corp. inked in 2019 to develop metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) therapies.
With confidence dropping in doing business with China-affiliated life sciences companies due to the Biosecure Act, one of the companies explicitly named in the U.S. legislation is fighting back. Raising the possibility of a constitutional challenge to the bill, Rade Drmanac, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Complete Genomics Inc., wrote to congressional leaders to urge them to remove the California-based subsidiary of MGI from the bill.
Inventiva SA is back on course to complete phase III development of its metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) drug, lanifibranor, after putting in place new financing of up to €348 million (US$379.4 million), including an immediate cash injection of €94.1 million.
Gene therapy specialist Meiragtx Holdings plc got a market bump courtesy of newly released top-line data from its phase II bridging study in Parkinson’s disease. The six-month, three-arm randomized, double-blind, sham controlled trial of AAV-GAD, a one-time infusion, demonstrated significant and clinically meaningful improvements in key efficacy endpoints. The primary objective was evaluating the therapy’s safety and tolerability. The study of participants with idiopathic disease showed the therapy was safe and well-tolerated with no serious adverse events. Meiragtx is pursuing approvals in the U.S., Europe and Japan.
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