Pfizer’s second crack at steering a NASH candidate through a battered field seems to be going better than the first.

The pharma giant has scored the FDA’s fast track designation for an experimental combination therapy as a treatment for NASH with liver fibrosis. The combo consists of ervogastat, a diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase 2 inhibitor (DGAT2i), and clesacostat, an acetyl-CoA carboxylase inhibitor (ACCi).

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At the end of January, the European Medicines Agency officially launched its new clinical trials info system (CTIS), although the migration to the new platform has only really just begun, and sponsors have until the end of January 2023 before all initial trial applications must be submitted through CTIS.

Overall, 56 clinical trial applications have been submitted in CTIS during the first 3 months since the launch of the system on Jan. 31, according to new data posted by the EMA. By comparison, about 4,000 new trials are authorized each year across Europe.

As the close runner-up to Amgen’s Lumakras in the KRAS race, any data cut from Mirati’s adagrasib continues to draw scrutiny from analysts. And the latest batch of numbers from ASCO is a decidedly mixed bag.

While a quick comparison suggests that adagrasib spurred slightly more responses and led to a longer overall survival than Lumakras among a group of non-small cell lung cancer patients, its duration of response appears shorter and the safety profile continues to spark concern.

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When Ann saw the first TV commercials for HIV medicine Dovato, she didn’t see herself represented. So the 74-year-old retired school administrator who’s been living with HIV since 1998, reached out to GSK’s ViiV Healthcare and asked why not?

Now Ann is one of three people starring in ViiV’s latest Dovato campaign called “Detect This.” The next-step evolution in the branded campaign plays on the word “detect” — often used in describing HIV status under control as undetectable — but in this case, uses the word as a directive for people to understand they can use fewer medicines.

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As concerns related to uptake and distribution continue to linger, Switzerland is among the first countries that plans to destroy hundreds of thousands of expired and unused Covid-19 vaccine doses.

The European country said it plans to destroy more than 600,000 doses of Moderna’s Spikevax Covid-19 vaccine as the doses have reached their expiration date.

However, Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that he’s in the process of throwing 30 million doses in the garbage, exclaiming, “We have a big demand problem.”

Months after Sanofi snapped up Kadmon for $1.9 billion, a longtime Kadmon consultant has been accused of using insider knowledge of the buyout to make more than $400,000 in illegal profits.

The SEC filed a complaint against Frank Glassner in a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, charging him with insider trading. The 68-year-old was also slapped with two securities fraud charges from the Department of Justice, which carry maximum prison sentences of 20 and 25 years, respectively.

Before cancer-focused biotechs start their trek to the first in-person American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual conference since the pandemic began, investors have taken a good look at the teasers for the data scheduled to be presented — and started placing bets.

With its power to confer overnight fame, ASCO is a stage where impressive or surprise debut performances can go a long way. On the other hand, disappointing details could be punishing.

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Catalyst Biosciences was down to five employees in March, and the biotech needed to do something after two rounds of layoffs, a nixed collaboration and a culling of its hemophilia program.

In came Vertex, with $60 million to buy up the South San Francisco biotech’s preclinical complement drugs, which target the system that bridges the body’s innate and adaptive immune response and a class most known for Ultomiris and Soliris. The deal includes CB 2782-PEG, the dry AMD drug that Biogen no longer wanted in March.

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On its way to potentially becoming the first to market with a CD20xCD3 bispecific for aggressive lymphoma, Big Pharma’s largest R&D spender has some more data to pad its case with an FDA filing slated for later this year.

Roche dropped some more details from a Phase II expansion study of its fixed-duration glofitamab, to be presented at next week’s ASCO annual meeting, in patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The patients had received a median of three prior therapies.

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The Senate is joining its House counterparts and advancing accelerated approval pathway reforms to the FDA user fee legislation that must be signed by President Joe Biden before the end of September or else the FDA will have to start laying off its staff.

While Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) warned yesterday that the user fee deals could be delayed by the infant formula crisis, the newly introduced bill on Friday shows how the Senate is aligning with its House counterparts on similar accelerated approval reforms.

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Bioscience & Technology Business Center The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas

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