FDA
The senator, who has long advocated for expanding access to experimental therapies, reportedly called the FDA’s request for a sham surgery–controlled Phase 3 trial for uniQure’s Huntington’s disease gene therapy “bureaucratic idiocy.”
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UniQure’s Path for Huntington’s Gene Therapy Clouded by Ethical Questions as Potential Phase 3 Looms
While the FDA appears to be adamant that uniQure conduct a sham surgery–controlled Phase 3 trial before AMT-130 can be considered for approval, experts believe there is an alternate path forward for the therapy, perhaps even based on precedent from the recent drama surrounding Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine.
Here’s how drug developers can best approach interactions with the agency following last year’s seismic changes to its leadership, workforce and policies.
FDA decisions lack majority consensus, experts agree, possibly leading to less nuanced verdicts on new drug applications. This type of “fiat” decision-making, as multiple regulatory experts have called it, is also bleeding into the agency’s policymaking.
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UniQure does not have to drill placebo burr holes in the skulls of patients with Huntington’s disease, an unnamed FDA senior official said on Thursday. Instead, the company would anesthetize them and put “one to three nicks” in their scalp.
Adam Urato, who is currently a vaccine advisor to the CDC, is closely associated with acting CDER director Tracy Beth Høeg and is a fellow skeptic of the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors during pregnancy.
The timing of the partial hold is “odd,” according to analysts at Stifel, who noted that the preclinical data the FDA took issue with were filed in mid-2024.
Having targeted Hims & Hers last year, the FDA has issued warnings to more telehealth companies over their promotion of GLP-1 drugs used to treat diabetes and obesity. In one case, compounded products were linked with multiple ER visits.
The FDA last October paused Intellia Therapeutics’ late-stage CRISPR studies after detecting life-threatening enzyme elevations in one patient, who died a few days later.
In a complete response letter published by the FDA on Monday, the agency said a resubmission for REGENXBIO’s Hunter syndrome gene therapy should provide evidence of normalized or improved biomarker levels or neurodevelopmental outcomes.
Days after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary appeared to malign uniQure’s AMT-130 in an interview with CNBC, the agency confirmed to the biotech that a sham surgery–controlled study is needed before submitting the gene therapy for approval.
Yuviwel will compete with BioMarin’s Voxzogo. Meanwhile, BridgeBio is working to bring its own achondroplasia drug, the FGFR3 blocker infigratinib, to the market.
On the FDA’s docket this month are two decisions pushed back from 2025, including one for a rare form of obesity and another for dry eye disease.
This week’s Capitol Hill meetings come on the heels of rejections of ultra-rare disease drugs developed by Biohaven and Saol Therapeutics. Physicians and patient groups implored the FDA to expedite these treatments.