WELCOME TO FIERCE LIFE SCIENCES WEEKLY DIGEST Biogen and the drug pricing watchdogs at ICER went back-and-forth over whether Aduhelm provides benefits over the current standard for Alzheimer’s disease, and whether those benefits are worth the money. They disagreed. Though the drugmaker said “innovative thinking” would be needed to fully assess the treatment’s value and its $56,000 annual price tag, ICER’s panel voted unanimously against the drug. But that’s not stopping the company’s new, high-profile ad campaign urging people to get screened for Alzheimer’s at the first signs of cognitive impairment—even while certain hospital systems, such as the Cleveland Clinic, say they won’t administer the drug themselves. Those stories, plus the big changes planned for GSK and Regeneron’s R&D sites, follow below. | |
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Featured Story | By Noah Higgins-Dunn With Aduhelm facing troubles with prescribers, Biogen and Japanese partner Eisai are pushing a new Alzheimer's ad campaign focused on the importance of early disease detection. read more |
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Top Stories Of The Week By Noah Higgins-Dunn In a stinging rebuke against Biogen's Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm, a group of independent experts with U.S. cost watchdog ICER issued a 15-to-0 vote against the treatment. Biogen brought its own set of arguments to the meeting but was unable to convince the group. read more By Nick Paul Taylor GlaxoSmithKline is planning to sell more than one-third of its 92-acre R&D site in Stevenage, U.K. The proposed sale, which comes amid criticism of GSK’s historically low R&D investment, is part of a plan to turn part of the site into a life science campus. read more By Fraiser Kansteiner Regeneron laid plans for a six-year, $1.8 billion expansion at its existing Westchester County campus, according to the New York Governor’s office. The expansion will see the company grow its New York headcount by 1,000 over the next five years. read more By Fraiser Kansteiner Pfizer, which put global Chantix distribution on hold late last month, is escalating its response to discovering a potential cancer-causing agent in the drug. The latest development involves as 12-lot recall of a drug that's already in shortage. read more By Amirah Al Idrus Months after finally revealing its first weapons against cancer, Erasca has pulled off a $300 million IPO. The proceeds will propel an SHP2 inhibitor and an ERK inhibitor through the clinic and get at least one more prospect into human trials. read more By Noah Higgins-Dunn AbbVie and Eli Lilly said separately that the FDA again delayed decisions over their applications for Rinvoq and Olumiant for adults and adolescents with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis. read more By Arlene Weintraub The protein produced by the gene HTRA1 naturally increases with age and has long been thought to contribute to age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and other diseases of aging. But researchers at University of Utah Health believe that in some cases, the HTRA1 protein might be protective, not destructive—and augmenting it could be a new treatment strategy. read more By Kevin Dunleavy Facing astronomical costs over talc lawsuits, Johnson & Johnson is exploring the possibility of starting a new company to absorb the litigation liabilities and declare bankruptcy, according to Reuters. read more By Conor Hale Velano’s PIVO device, first cleared by the FDA in 2017, collects blood painlessly after the initial placement of an IV line. read more | | Executive Summary: Are Real-time Gene Therapy Results Possible? As science and tech companies continue to make advancements in vaccine and viral vector-based gene therapy development, there is an increasing need for analytical techniques to help assess quality parameters, especially in real-time. Download this Executive Summary to learn how Catalent applied more rapid and accurate measurement of quality attributes—such as viral titer and infectivity—to cell testing. |
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