Underestimating the Value of Drugs that Disrupt the DNA Repair Mechanisms in Cancer Cells. AstraZeneca’s (AZN) Chief Executive Pascal Soriot said that while DNA damage response was under-recognized by investors, oncologists were already “very excited” by its potential of the drugs targeting DNA repair mechanisms inside cancer cells. According to AstraZeneca, drugs that disrupt the DNA repair mechanisms inside cancer cells are showing tangible promise for …

GILEAD After years of controversial refraining, official India reversed course and granted Gilead Sciences its patent rights to Sovaldi hepatitis C treatment. More than a victory for Gilead, it was the prevalence of fairness after years of underestimating the power to fairness to keep resurfacing until reinstated. The Indian Patent Office had rejected Gilead’s patent application based on a notion that it did not demonstrate …

By June, which is next month, Incyte (INCY) will be the owner of the European operations of Ariad (ARIA). That’s what both firms have announced yesterday. Among other details, the firms decided on signing a licensing agreement for exclusive development and commercialization rights to Ariad’s Iclusig (ponatinib) in the European Union and 22 other countries, including Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Israel and Russia. Iclusig is approved …

Medivation is a Target for Acquisition The Question is: Who Will Acquire Medivation? Sanofi has made a bid to acquire Medivation for $9.3 billion (£6.37B). Sanofi is expected to pay $52.50 per share in cash for Medivation. Why Medivation? Sanofi's chief executive Olivier Brandicourt said, "Thanks to Medivation's excellent prostate cancer treatments, we believe that a merger with Medivation would benefit patients and, at the same time, create value …

Biotech NEWS   AGENUS Agenus’ First Checkpoint Inhibitor to reach Clinical Trial The first patient has been dosed in Agenus (AGEN) Phase 1 clinical trial of its checkpoint inhibitor product AGEN1884. The open-label, multicenter trial in patients with advanced or refractory cancer is designed to evaluate the safety of AGEN1884 and determine the estimated maximum tolerated dose. AGEN1884 is an anti-CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4) checkpoint …

The AACR 2016 meeting presentations differed substantially from previous meetings. The  2016 meeting has brought near certainty that, indeed, defeating cancer is a reachable objective. The road is lengthy, but the speed in analyzing the data and acting upon them towards improvement is unprecedented. You will find the most important information about the AACR cancer meeting in the upcoming Prohost Letter. In the NEWS TAPIMMUNE …

Illumina Showing 6% revenue increase over the same quarter last year, Q1 2016, was not enough as Illumina (ILMN) missed analysts’ expectations and its own projections regarding its revenues. Prior to the announcement of its Q1 results, the giant gene sequencing firm offered investors a comprehensive explanation of the origin of the miss and the actions it has already begun to take to avoid future misses. Illumina pinpointed …

In the biotech sector, daily stories (news) are not just announced, but mostly edited in ways that project the narrators’ tendencies and wishes rather than the original news. Last week’s headlines comprised positive news from a firm’s drug aimed at treating a chronic progressive disease, muscular dystrophy, which disables children’s by weakening their voluntary and involuntary muscles, while threatening their hearts and lungs and lives. Other headlines …

Pursuing its goal in treating hepatitis, Gilead Sciences (GILD) is at the finish line of clinical trials on another virus, this time the Hepatitis B virus. HBV not HCV. Two large Phase 3 trials evaluating once-daily tenofovir alafenamide (TAF) 25 mg in treatment-naïve and treatment-experienced adults with HBeAg-negative and HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection met the primary endpoints of non-inferiority to Gilead’s Viread® (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) 300 mg.  …

Regeneron and Intellia to Discover and Develop CRISPR/Cas Therapeutics Moving forward is Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ (REGN) strategy based on strong scientific and technological capability that needs no validation by external validators. The quality, i.e., safety and efficacy, of Regeneron’s approved products and the clinical trial outcomes of the firm’s drugs in late phase trials speak for themselves. Good news from the firm is flooding the media. The most recent …

Another day, another badly needed treatment for a dangerous disease is on its way to be FDA approved. The day was yesterday, Thursday, April 7, 2016. The company is Intercept (ICPT), the disease is primary biliary cirrhosis renamed primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), the drug is called Ocaliva™ (obeticholic acid). The good news came from the FDA's Gastrointestinal Drugs Advisory Committee, which voted 17 to 0to recommend accelerated approval of Ocaliva™.    Now …

Pfizer (PF) terminated its acquisition agreement with Allergan Plc (AGN) The new set of rules released by the U.S. Treasury Department to make it difficult for U.S. companies to conduct tax inversions contributed Pfizer’s decision. Analysts noted that the new regulations seem almost directly aimed at Pfizer-Allergan. In one of two major parts of the new rules, the U.S. government would not consider the assets acquired …

PFIZER Pfizer (PF) announced that its oral drug tofacitinib in doses of 5 mg and 10 mg twice daily  met Phase 3 endpoints on psoriatic arthritis. The trial was conducted on adult patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA). The recruited patients had an inadequate response to at least one conventional anti-rheumatic drug (csDMARD) and were tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi)-naïve. Patients enrolled in the study were …

Incyte (INCY) and Eli Lilly (LLY): The New England Journal of Medicine published detailed results of RA-BEACON — a pivotal phase 3 global study of baricitinib, a once-daily oral treatment for moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The study met its primary endpoint of ACR 20 response for baricitinib compared with placebo at week 12. ACR 20 response rates were (P≤0.001 for each baricitinib dose versus placebo): 55 percent for baricitinib 4 mg; 49 percent …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC) voted 12 to 2 that the benefits outweigh the risks of Acadia’s (ACAD) drug Nuplazid™ (pimavanserin) for the treatment of psychosis associated with Parkinson’s disease. The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) action date for the FDA decision is May 1, 2016.  Nuplazid’s NDA was granted a breakthrough designation and Priority Review status for the treatment …

It is an ingenuous decision made by investors who rushed to consider betrixaban Phase 3 APEX study a failure. Betrixaban is a once-daily orally administered Factor Xa inhibitor anticoagulant.  The Phase 3 AREX study was evaluating the superiority of oral betrixaban’s extended-duration anticoagulation vs. the injectable standard-of-care anticoagulation for the prevention of venous thromboembolism (VTE) in acute medically ill patients. The 7,513-subject study designed to assess the relative risk …

Amgen (AMGN) and UCB (Euronext Brussels: UCB) announced positive results from the BRIDGE pivotal Phase 3 placebo-controlled study evaluating the efficacy and safety of romosozumab in treating men with osteoporosis.  The study met the primary endpoint, demonstrating a statistically significant increase in bone mineral density (BMD) at the lumbar spine in men with osteoporosis treated with romosozumab compared with placebo at 12 months. All secondary endpoints comparing romosozumab with placebo …

Immunotherapy for Cancer Blueprint Medicines Blueprint Medicines (BPMC) entered into a worldwide collaboration and exclusive license agreement with F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd and Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. (collectively, Roche) for the discovery, development and commercialization of up to five small molecule therapeutics targeting kinases believed to be important in cancer immunotherapy. Under the terms of the agreement, Blueprint Medicines will receive an upfront cash payment of $45 million …

First therapy to demonstrate statistically significant improvement in overall survival and induction response rate in a pivotal Phase 3 trial in high-risk Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)   NDA submission for VYXEOS planned for later this year   Celator Pharmaceuticals (CPXX) announced positive results from Phase 3 trial of VYXEOS™ (cytarabine: daunorubicin) Liposome for Injection (also known as CPX-351) in patients with high-risk (secondary) acute myeloid leukemia (AML) compared to the standard …

The Diagnosed Dead Is Far from Dying Xoma (XOMA): Stock rallied following report announcing an upfront payment from Novartis, which multiplied the firm’s revenues 10 times over 2014. Novartis paid Xoma $37 million, Novo Nordisk paid $5 million and Pfizer paid the firm a little less than $4 million. CEO John Varian said, “Novel antibodies and technologies created by XOMA scientists to target diseases such as …