Regulatory
Congressional letters sent to the CEOs of Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck, BMS and AbbVie this week voicing concerns about the pharmas’ clinical trials in China highlight an ongoing discrepancy in how government and industry think about the rise of the Asian country’s biotech industry.
Many of the FDA’s decisions this quarter involve applications that have previously been delayed, declined or outright rejected, including one for an mRNA vaccine that became the center of controversy earlier this year.
The FDA approved the expansion of Casgevy, which had previously been greenlit for patients 12 and up, into a younger pediatric population under the agency’s Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program.
The approval of Tregzi—the first regulatory greenlight for Orca Bio—was based on a Phase 3 study in which patients on the therapy were twice as likely to survive without cancer relapse and without chronic GVHD compared with conventional allogeneic transplant.
Sarepta Therapeutics is seeking to convert the accelerated approval of its therapeutic exon-skippers for Duchenne muscular dystrophy to full despite the drugs’ failure to improve motor function in a confirmatory trial.
The vibe at BIO 2026 in San Diego last week was overwhelmingly positive, with attendees observing noticeable changes at the FDA and an uptick in dealmaking and IPOs. Plus, a top medical journal this week retracted a pivotal study for Amgen’s rare disease drug Tavneos, which has been in the FDA’s crosshairs since January.
Unicycive Therapeutics and Sobi received complete response letters for kidney disease and gout filings, respectively, after the FDA found fault with their manufacturing partners.
Vijay Kumar, acting director of CBER’s Office of Therapeutic Products, will leave his role at a tumultuous time for the FDA.
The delay is largely “benign” for Praxis Precision Medicines, according to Jefferies, which emphasized that the FDA did not flag safety or manufacturing issues.
Earlier this year, Amgen refused the FDA’s request to withdraw Tavneos from the market. Now, two researchers who participated in the original study to support the drug’s approval claim they did not know the primary endpoint was readjudicated after the study was unblinded.
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