Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
For Pfizer And Merck, Grips On Covid Antiviral Market May Be Loosening
As the fight against COVID-19 rolls on, regulators in Japan have bestowed a green light on the country's first homegrown antiviral. (Kansteiner, 11/22)
British pharma giant GSK said Tuesday that it will withdraw its blood cancer drug Blenrep from the U.S. market, following a request from the Food and Drug Administration. Blenrep鈥檚 removal is another sign that U.S. regulators are taking a more aggressive stance toward cancer drugs approved based on preliminary evidence of efficacy. (Feuerstein, 11/22)
Generic drug makers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Sandoz say they are planning a significant ramp-up in production of biosimilars 鈥 copies of high-priced drugs used to treat illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and cancer 鈥 aiming to increase their share of an expanding market. More than 55 brand-name blockbuster biologic drugs, each with peak annual sales above $1 billion, are due to come off patent by the end of the decade, according to industry estimates. (Grover and Scheer, 11/22)
The courtroom drama surrounding Bristol Myers Squibb and its subsidiary Celgene over their efforts to restrict competition for lymphoma drug Revlimid has raged for more than a decade. (Dunleavy, 11/22)
Years after Merck & Co.'s Keytruda failed to move the needle in newly diagnosed stomach cancer bearing the PD-L1 biomarker, the company has come back with a win, this time for tumors聽regardless of PD-L1 expression. (Becker, 11/22)
A form of blood cancer known as mantle cell lymphoma is critically dependent on a protein that coordinates gene expression, such that blocking its activity with an experimental drug dramatically slows the growth of this lymphoma in preclinical tests, according to a study from Weill Cornell Medicine researchers. (Weill Cornell Medicine, 11/22)
Also 鈥
Even as a child, La鈥橳onzia Adams was interested in diagnosing disease. One day, when she noticed a bump on her chest, she decided to look up 鈥渃hicken pox鈥 in the Webster鈥檚 dictionary at her grandmother鈥檚 house to figure out if her symptoms matched the illness. (Trang, 11/22)