News

The NHS could have saved millions last year if an ongoing patent case had not restricted the use of generic pregabalin, a new analysis claims.

Merck & Co has signed a clinical trials pact with German biopharma Affimed that will test a combination of two immunotherapies for Hodgkin lymphoma.

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted Immunocore’s IMCgp100 orphan drug designation for the treatment of uveal melanoma.

GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have linked with Imperial College London, University College London and the University of Cambridge to establish a new £40 million fund supporting early drug research.

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo has won accelerated approval in the US in combination with Yervoy as a treatment for patients with BRAF V600 wild-type and BRAF V600 mutation-positive unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

NHS England is widening access to a form of chemotherapy shown in clinical trials to extend survival in advanced prostate cancer by more than a year.

US regulators have expanded the scope of Amgen’s cancer drug Kyprolis, approving its use in combination with dexamethasone or with lenalidomide/dexamethasone for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received one to three lines of therapy.

AbbVie and MD Anderson are working together to develop new approaches and strategies in the field of immuno-oncology.  

Pfizer UK’s Ibrance has cleared the first hurdle to joining the UK’s Early Access to Medicines Scheme after being awarded ‘Promising Innovative Medicine’ status by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is supporting NHS use of a novel immunotherapy for skin cancer shown to double two-year survival in some patients.

Shares in Alkermes dropped more than 30% in the aftermath of news that its experimental depression drug failed to hit targets in two late-stage studies.

MSD and Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) are teaming up with NHS England to launch the Long Term Conditions Early Intervention Programme, aimed at evaluating the impact of new technologies in preventing costly long term conditions (LTCs).

GlaxoSmithKline is reportedly in discussions with mobile technologies group Qualcomm over a possible joint venture centred on medical tech.

More than 80 drug and diagnostic firms have united under a new commitment to tackle the antimicrobial resistance crisis, and also call on global governments to “go beyond statement of intent” and “take concrete action” to improve the business case for developing new antibiotics.

AbbVie’s venetoclax has picked up another breakthrough therapy status in the US, this time in combination with Roche’s rituximab as a treatment for patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.