With a phase IIb readout coming in the third quarter of 2020, Cambridge, Mass.-based Fulcrum Therapeutics Inc. might be set up for a win in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a genetic muscle disorder for which there’s no treatment.
Kala Pharmaceuticals Inc. plans to use its positive phase III data in dry eye disease (DED) with KPI-121 (loteprednol etabonate ophthalmic suspension 0.25%) as the basis for the resubmission of its NDA in the second quarter of 2020.
During its Feb. 27, 2020, conference call on the previous year’s fourth-quarter results – though not in a related press release – Nektar Therapeutics Inc. let news drop that the prospective breast cancer (BC) therapy Onzeald (etirinotecan pegol) for patients with brain metastases had failed in top-line phase III outcomes.
Keros Therapeutics Inc. CEO Jasbir Seehra told BioWorld that he plans to use at his new company lessons learned as co-founder of Acceleron Pharma Inc., where work with receptors in the TGF-beta superfamily “taught me the potential of the biology and those molecules, but also the limitations” with regard to safety that need to be surmounted.
Strongly favorable six-month data disclosed on Jan. 9 by Applied Genetic Technologies Corp. (AGTC) from its ongoing phase I/II program with an adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy for X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (XLRP) did more than provide a whopping stock boost.
With new phase III multiple myeloma (MM) data in hand from Newton, Mass.-based Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc.’s Xpovio (selinexor), Wall Street began speculating about what the results might mean in the marketplace.
Paris-based Sanofi SA won FDA clearance of the intravenously given CD38-directed cytolytic antibody Sarclisa (isatuximab-irfc) in combination with pomalidomide (Pomalyst, Celgene Corp.) and dexamethasone (dex) for adults with multiple myeloma (MM) who have received at least two prior therapies, including lenalidomide (Revlimid, Celgene Corp.) and a proteasome inhibitor.
Aptevo Therapeutics Inc.’s chief scientific officer, Jane Gross, told BioWorld that the sale of the firm’s marketed recombinant hemophilia B therapeutic, Ixinity, to Medexus Pharmaceuticals Inc. allowed for a “cleaner message” to Wall Street. “It was a little difficult to explain having a commercial asset and an R&D pipeline,” she said.
During a recent investor event related to early drug development, Basel, Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG touted research by the firm’s Genentech unit into the cancer target known as TIGIT, or T-cell immunoreceptor with Ig and ITIM domains, and the pharma giant is hardly alone in the sizzling space.
New York-based Kadmon Holdings Inc.’s recent oral late-breaker session on KD-025 in chronic graft-vs.-host disease (cGVHD) at the Transplantation & Cellular Therapy (TCT) meeting – along with data that rolled out from two studies testing competitor Jakafi (ruxolitinib) from Incyte Corp. – signaled potential advantages in the former’s candidate, already highly regarded.
