The US Food and Drug Administration has used a novel endpoint to approve a new drug for prostate cancer. Measuring metastasis-free survival, the agency decided that the Janssen Pharmaceutical drug Erleada (apalutamide) is effective.
An initial public share offering in the US for Pieris Pharmaceuticals Inc has been priced at $8 per share and is expected to raise $44 million. The Nasdaq IPO will enable the company, a developer of protein therapeutics, to advance its bispecific drug candidate targeting the tumour microenvironment.
Synpromics Ltd is bringing its technology for creating synthetic promoters into a partnership with a unit of University College London (UCL) in order to help researchers there develop gene therapies for blood-based disorders. The agreement was announced on 25 January.
A new Belgian company has been launched to develop therapies for cognitive disorders using intellectual property from UCB SA. The company has received Series A financing of €17 million from a syndicate of Belgian and international investors.
Novo Nordisk A/S, a global producer of diabetes products, reported little change in its sales and a 1% increase in operating profit in 2017 at respectively DKK 112 billion (€15.05 billion) and DKK 49 billion.
ViiV Healthcare Ltd, the specialist HIV company majority-owned by GlaxoSmithKline Plc, has filed a patent infringement suit against Gilead Sciences Inc over bictegravir, an integrase inhibitor that is part of a combination therapy approved in the US on 7 February.
An experimental cancer therapy that combines the Roche checkpoint antibody Tecentriq (atezolizumab) and Avastin (bevacizumab) met its co-primary endpoint of progression-free survival in a Phase 3 trial of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.
Sanofi SA is forecasting a rise in adjusted earnings per share in 2018 of between 2% and 5% as new products gradually overtake the decline in sales of its core diabetes franchise.
Sales increased across GlaxoSmithKline’s three business groups in 2017, but the company expressed caution for the year ahead owing to uncertainty about the timing of the market entry of a generic competitor for its respiratory medicine Advair.
After Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway Inc and JP Morgan Chase & Co announced on 30 January that they will take steps to reduce the rising cost of US health insurance, shares of health insurance companies and pharmacies declined.