News

Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (Sobi) ended the third quarter with plans to acquire the US specialty pharma company Dova Pharmaceuticals Inc, as well as to opt in to a development collaboration with Sanofi SA for the experimental haemophilia drug BIVV001. Guido Oelkers, the company’s chief executive, described the moves as an opportunity to expand the company’s rare disease franchise into haematology.

Sanofi SA increased sales by 1.1% to €9.5 billion in third quarter, supported by strong growth of the immunology drug Dupixent and medicines for rare diseases. But vaccines, the company’s third largest business unit, were held back by the late delivery of influenza product to the US. The company’s operating profit of €2.13 billion was down by 21.4% after taking into account restructuring and amortisations, as well as impairment charges.

The safety committee of the European Medicines Agency is recommending that new restrictions be placed on the use of the multiple sclerosis drug Lemtrada (alemtuzumab) in light of reports of rare but serious side effects, including deaths. The latest recommendations replace temporary measures issued in April. They will be considered by the agency’s main scientific committee for a formal opinion.

A second experimental Ebola vaccine is to be tested in a large clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as public health authorities mobilise resources to contain an outbreak of Ebola virus disease, declared by the World Health Organization to be a public health emergency.

A vaccine designed to reduce the incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis in HIV-negative adults has shown an overall efficacy rate of 50%, according to the developers GlaxoSmithKline Plc and the international AIDS vaccine initiative (IAVI). The Phase 2b study enrolled adults with latent TB infection, which is estimated to affect one-quarter of the global population. Of this number, an estimated 10% will develop active pulmonary TB disease.

The kinase inhibitor tucatinib has shown a 46% reduction in the risk of breast cancer progression in a Phase 3 trial that enrolled patients who had previously received two antibody treatments and one antibody-drug conjugate. Announcing the results on 21 October, Seattle Genetics Inc said a US regulatory filing is planned for the first quarter of 2020.

A Phase 2 trial of an experimental treatment for atopic dermatitis, MOR106, which was being jointly developed by Galapagos NV, MorphoSys AG and Novartis Pharma AG, has been stopped for futility, the companies announced on 28 October. An interim analysis showed a low probability of the compound meeting it's primary endpoint, defined as the percentage change in the eczema area and severity index score.

Kiadis Pharma NV has strengthened its scientific advisory board to guide the ongoing development of its cell therapy for patients who’ve had a stem cell transplant. This follows guidance from the European Medicines Agency that the product, ATIR101, will not be recommended for approval. ATIR101 has been under regulatory review since 2017.