The approval of Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A.'s and Orexigen Therapeutics Inc.'s Contrave (naltrexone and bupropion) in September and Saxenda (liraglutide) from Novo Nordisk A/S last month doubled the number of obesity drugs approved by the FDA in the last two and a half years.
Both Merck & Co. Inc.’s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s Opdivo (nivolumab) were approved by the FDA to treat advanced metastatic melanoma last year, but that’s only the start of the possibilities for the PD-1 pathway drugs. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 5, 2014.)
Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, joyous Kwanzaa. Whatever you celebrated, the venture capitalists gave the biopharma industry a mighty large gift in 2014. Investments in private drug companies tracked by BioWorld Snapshots rounded out the year at $3.85 billion, up substantially from the $2.6 billion in 2013 in the U.S.
Human growth hormone (hGH) is a $3.5 billion industry, but it's plagued by a major issue: All of the current versions of hGH (somatropin) – Novo Nordisk's Norditropin, Eli Lilly and Co.'s Humatrope, Roche AG unit Genentech Inc.'s Nutropin-AQ, Merck Serono's Saizen, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.'s Tev-tropin, LG Life Science Ltd.'s Valtropin and Omnitrope, sold by Novartis AG's generic group Sandoz – have to be injected daily.
IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics is out with its latest prediction for sales of medicines through 2018, when global spending is expected to reach between $1.28 trillion and $1.31 trillion, an increase of $290 million to $320 million over 2013 levels.
IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics is out with its latest prediction for sales of medicines through 2018, when global spending is expected to reach between $1.28 trillion and $1.31 trillion, an increase of $290 million to $320 million over 2013 levels.
After brokering the sale of Cambridge, Mass.-based Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. to Merck & Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J., earlier this year, the biotech's former president and CEO, Ronald Renaud, is taking on a new project as CEO of Rana Therapeutics Inc., helping the biotech develop its long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) technology.
We've known that Intercept Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s FLINT trial evaluating obeticholic acid (OCA) for the treatment of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) was positive since the data safety monitoring stopped the trial early for positive efficacy in January. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 10, 2014.)
