News

Cost regulators for the NHS in England and Wales have now issued final guidelines permitting routine use of Santen’s Ikervis to treat severe keratitis in adults with dry eye disease which has not improved despite treatment with artificial tears.

Patients with a very rare inherited lysosomal storage disease will now get treatment with Biomarin’s Vimizim funded on the National Health Service in England and Wales after cost regulators issued a final nod for the drug.

In an unprecedented move, NHS England has now placed NHS Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group in special measures, indicating that it has grave concerns across the breadth of the Group’s operations. 

A new therapy being developed by GlaxoSmithKline and Janssen as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis has passed late-stage clinical safety and efficacy tests, paving the way for regulatory filings next year.

The financial state of acute NHS hospital trusts significantly declined in the last year and is still on a downward spiral, according to a report by the National Audit Office.

NICE is planning to bar patients with a particular form of lung cancer from access to Bristol-Myers Squibb’s ground-breaking immunotherapy Opdivo on the NHS in England and Wales.

Amgen has entered into a definitive agreement with GSK to reacquire all of its remaining rights to bone drugs Prolia (denosumab) and Xgeva (denosumab) and cancer therapy Vectibix (panitumumab) in 48 countries around the globe.

Sanofi and Boehringer Ingelheim are in exclusive negotiations to swap respective animal health and consumer healthcare businesses.

Two GP surgeries in Tamworth run by the same practice have been rated as ‘inadequate’ by the CQC and placed into special measures on safety concerns.

GlaxoSmithKline is streaming £17 million into a new partnership with Comic Relief to fight malaria and improve health in five countries worst affected by the disease.

More than 24,000 female heart patients are missing out on crucial rehabilitation, putting thousands at greater risk from further heart attacks, finds a new report from the British Heart Foundation.

Lilly and Merck & Co are further expanding the scope of their immuno-oncology alliance to evaluate a combination of abemaciclib, Lilly’s cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 inhibitor, and Keytruda, Merck’s PD-1 inhibitor.

A new drug that could potentially revolutionise the treatment of a certain form of heart failure has been given a preliminary green light for NHS use in England and Wales.

AstraZeneca has confirmed that it is in talks to buy privately held US/Dutch clinical stage biopharma Acerta Pharma, in a deal speculated to be worth around $5 billion.

Roche group Genentech’s Alecensa has been given a speedy US approval for a particular type of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), giving patients access to a new targeted treatment option.