News

GW Pharmaceuticals has begun recruiting patients into a second late-stage trial evaluating the potential of its cannabinoid drug Epidiolex in treating a rare and severe form of treatment-resistant childhood epilepsy called Dravet syndrome.

Israeli drugmaker Teva has now stepped out with a $40-billion-bid for Mylan NV, proving the rumour mill right and continuing the current mergers and acquisitions trend in the industry.

Pfizer’s Xalkori has picked up a Breakthrough Therapy designation from the US Food and Drug Administration for treating patients with the rare ROS1-positive form of non-small cell lung cancer.

Sticking to scientific advice from the European Medicines Agency on clinical trial design cuts the overall assessment time for a new medicine and boosts its chance of approval, an analysis of marketing authorisation outcomes has found.

New research suggests that pulsatile – or intermittent – dosing of statins might be effective enough to maintain an adequate cholesterol-lowering effect, while offering the advantages of boosting treatment compliance and cutting back National Health Service costs.

The cost of prescriptions issued by general practices in England and Wales jumped 2.9% to £9.16 billion in 2014, overshooting inflation (0.5%) and thus representing an increased cost to the National Health Service, with diabetes drugs accounting for the lion’s share. 

Merck KGaA and Pfizer have kicked off an international late-stage study pitting the efficacy and safety of their investigational anti PD-L1 antibody avelumab against docetaxel in lung cancer.

Amid increasing media speculation about a potential marriage between generic drugmakers Teva and Mylan, the latter has taken the rather unusual step of declaring that it has not received any such offer, nor does it believe the match would be a good fit.

Another day, another cancer immunotherapy alliance, and this time it’s Roche and India’s Curadev Pharma shaking on a $555-million-plus deal to develop and commercialise IDO1 and TDO inhibitors. 

Just days after announcing a near $270-million stem cell research deal with Kyoto University, Takeda has unveiled an alliance with Keio University School of Medicine and Niigata University to study disease-related RNA-binding proteins.

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s PD-1 inhibitor Opdivo is in the spotlight again after smashing survival targets in a group of patients with non-small cell lung cancer, which could broaden its scope substantially.

Takeda has signed a $268-million, 10-year pact with Japan’s Kyoto University to develop stem cell therapies for a variety of different diseases such as heart failure and cancer.

Merck & Co has filed an application in the US to market its PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda for the treatment of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

AstraZeneca said this morning that its investigational lung cancer drug AZD9291 delayed disease progression by more than a year.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has transferred North American rights to cancer drug Erbitux (cetuximab) to Eli Lilly, as it hones its focus on the immuno-oncology field.