FDA
If ultimately confirmed, Makary’s planned departure, broken by The Wall Street Journal Friday afternoon, would follow a controversial tenure in which his deputy and constant co-author Vinay Prasad riled biopharma feathers with myriad unexpected drug rejections. Prasad stepped down as biologics chief last week.
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Comprehending the spate of recent rejections in the cell and gene therapy space may require looking no further than early-stage clinical trials of candidates from REGENXBIO, Excision BioTherapeutics and Intellia Therapeutics.
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The FDA is signaling change, but actual success depends on more than simply bringing in a new leader at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research; it requires accountability, transparency and consistent action.
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Facing increasing pressure from both industry and the White House, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said the strong bad press against him is “corporate spin” and that the agency has “followed the science.”
The FDA is reportedly down to a handful of final candidates to lead CBER, with a potential selection expected in the coming month or two. For now, the appointment of acting director Katherine Szarama has not allayed the industry’s concerns.
The advisory committee meeting—the FDA’s first drug-related adcomm in nine months—could have been a “more conceptual discussion” about the design of AstraZeneca’s Phase 3 trial of camizestrant in HER2-negative advanced breast cancer, former cancer regulator Harpreet Singh told BioSpace.
Veppanu, the first PROTAC therapy approved by the FDA, improved progression free survival by 43% versus AstraZeneca’s Faslodex but showed no such significant benefit in the intention-to-treat analysis.
The FDA is looking at a slew of label expansions this month, including one that could open up home-based treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer’s disease agitation could mean peak sales of over $2.1 billion for Axsome’s Auvelity, according to analysts at William Blair.
Members of the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee questioned the design of AstraZeneca’s Phase 3 trial of camizestrant, which involved switching treatments at the point of mutation detection, as opposed to the current practice of changing regimens upon disease progression.
Katherine Szarama, who has served as Prasad’s deputy at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research since December, joins a long list of temporary leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services.
UniQure plans to submit AMT-130 to the U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the third quarter of 2026 based on Phase 1/2 data showing a 75% slowing of disease—the same data the FDA has deemed unacceptable for a biologics license application.
The patient death occurred outside the U.S. and was deemed unrelated to Newron Pharmaceuticals’ investigational schizophrenia drug.