Vertex Pharmaceuticals
NEWS
Novartis, Eli Lilly and more put on their deal-making caps, Bristol Myers Squibb targets $2 billion in savings through 2027, sales continue to soar for Lilly and Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1s and Regeneron sues Sanofi over an alleged failure to provide adequate information about Dupixent sales.
Vertex expects to make the newly approved non-opioid pain medicine Journavx available by the end of February.
If the attention generated by BioSpace’s coverage of this landmark approval is any indication, Americans are hungry for non-opioid pain treatments that could help quell the still raging opioid epidemic.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS nomination moves to a full Senate vote; Donald Trump’s tariff war sparks China-related concerns for biopharma; Pfizer, Merck and more announce Q4 and 2024 earnings; and the non-opioid painkiller space heats up as FDA approves Vertex’s Jounavx.
The greenlight for Journavx (suzetrigine), which comes on the heels of a $7.4 billion opioid settlement, could spark momentum in the fledgling non-opioid pain space.
Along with its gene editing therapy Casgevy, Vertex is offering fertility preservation support for its patients—a program that the HHS claims violates anti-kickback statutes.
Among the FDA’s pending decisions for this quarter are Vertex’s non-opioid pain drug and Sanofi’s RNA interference therapy for hemophilia A and B.
The new combination, dubbed Alyftrek, is designed to improve on the Trikafta, a product that generated sales of $8.9 billion in 2023. It’s welcome good news for Vertex following last week’s subpar clinical results for its non-opioid analgesic.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ investigational non-opioid analgesic suzetrigine failed to outperform placebo. Investors voiced their concerns as the company’s share price fell 13% in premarket trading.
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