News

AbbVie’s investigational drug venetoclax has been assigned breakthrough status in the US as a treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia in patients who carry a specific genetic mutation known as 17p deletion.

Transparency amongst industry-sponsored clinical trials is continuing to improve in Europe, a study for the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, published in the journal Current Medical Research and Opinion, has found.

A US Appeals Court has temporarily blocked the sale of Novartis’ Zarxio, a biosimilar version of Amgen’s Neupogen, until a legal battle between the companies is settled.

In a world first, Johnson & Johnson has set up a unique alliance that will see an external party make ethical decisions on requests for access to its experimental therapies under the compassionate use programme.

Real world data from two large-scale UK audits show that use of Bayer’s Eylea (aflibercept) in clinical practice stabilised or improved outcomes in both treatment-naïve and pre-treated patients with wet age-related macular degeneration (wAMD).

ViiV Healthcare has kicked off a Phase III clinical trial programme to assess the safety and efficacy of a new combination maintenance therapy for adult patients with HIV. 

The mood for mega deals in the pharmaceuticals sector shows no sign of abating, as Alexion unveils plans to buy Synageva BioPharma for a whopping $8.4 billion.

Shares in Ardelyx fell more than 26% after it emerged that a Phase II trial assessing its AstraZeneca-partnered kidney drug tenapanor failed to hit targets.

Gilead is stepping into the field of epigenetics with a $65-million purchase of private Danish group EpiTherapeutics. 

GlaxoSmithKline has dumped plans to sell off its majority stake in ViiV Healthcare – a joint venture with Pfizer and Shionogi in which it holds around 80% – after the unit booked sales of $446 million for the first quarter of 2015, up 42% over the year-ago period.

Teva has completed its $3.5-billion purchase of Auspex Pharmaceuticals, in a move the Israeli drugmaker says will enhance its revenue and earnings growth profile and strengthen its core central nervous system franchise.

Tomorrow is the big day – 7 May; UK General Election day. 

China’s National Development and Reform Commission has reportedly announced that from June 1 it will remove pricing controls governing the majority of medicines to give the market more power in reigning in surging healthcare costs.

Global spending on cancer drugs topped $100 billion last year, rising 10.3% over 2013 and well above $75 billion back in 2010, according to IMS Health’s Global Oncology Trend Report.

GlaxoSmithKline and Italian partners Fondazione Telethon and Ospedale San Raffaele have submitted an application in Europe to market an investigational gene therapy for the treatment of an ultra-rare white blood cell deficiency condition often referred to as ‘bubble boy disease’.