News

With Christmas approaching, time is running out to enter the PharmaTimes International Clinical Researcher of the Year 2016. As well as a competition, it is a unique learning and development opportunity.

National Health Service providers have run up a record-breaking deficit of $1.6 billion for the first six months of the financial year and are facing significant challenges on both finance and operational performance, again ringing warning bells over its sustainability.

Patients with a very rare inherited lysosomal storage disease are now likely to get treatment with Biomarin’s Vimizin funded on the National Health Service in England and Wales after all, under a managed access agreement between the drugmaker and NHS England.

Following weeks of speculation Pfizer has now confirmed that it is merging with Botox-maker Allergan in a transaction valued at $160 billion, making it the biggest pharma deal in history. 

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Takeda’s Ninlaro as the first oral proteasome inhibitor for the treatment of the incurable and rare blood cancer multiple myeloma.

Patients in Europe with multiple myeloma could soon get access to a new treatment option for their disease following approval of Amgen’s Kyprolis, the first irreversible proteasome inhibitor cleared to treat the blood cancer.

US regulators have issued a full green light for Novartis’ targeted skin cancer therapy Tafinlar/Mekinist, nearly two years after an accelerated approval was issued for the combination.

MSD has launched a new intravenous antibiotic in the UK capable of treating certain Gram-negative bacterial infections, offering a new weapon in the fight against antimicrobial resistance.

In an unusual move AstraZeneca and Sanofi will exchange 210,000 compounds in order to boost their libraries and help launch more drug discovery programmes.

Servier has opted to acquire global rights to the allogenic CAR-T cell therapy UCART 19 from Cellectis and bring Pfizer on board to drive its development and commercialisation in blood cancers. 

Sandoz has launched in the UK a new patient-centric inhaler for the symptomatic treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The All Wales Medicines Strategy Group has accepted Xultophy for restricted use within NHS Wales to lower blood glucose in certain patients with type II diabetes.

The vast majority of junior doctors have voiced their support for industrial action over the government’s threat to impose a new working contract from August next year.

Eli Lilly and Merck & Co have extended an existing pact to investigate a combination of their respective drugs Alimta and Keytruda for non-small cell lung cancer.

Long-awaited plans for the future of England’s Cancer Drugs Fund have now been unveiled, with proposals centred on a system for commissioning new cancer drugs that is fully integrated into NICE’s appraisal process.