Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. CEO Doug Ingram said the U.S. FDA has promised to schedule “expeditiously” an advisory committee meeting on the BLA related to SRP-9001 (delandistrogene moxeparvovec) for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).
Citing clinical trial data backed by real-world data, members of the U.S. FDA’s Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee voted overwhelmingly, 16-1, March 16 that the overall benefit-risk assessment is favorable for the use of Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid to treat mild to moderate COVID-19 in adults who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death.
Woven Orthopedic Technologies LLC, received U.S. FDA 510(k) clearance for its Ogmend implant enhancement system for use in spine surgery. Ogmend is expected to give surgeons more confidence in using surgical screws when operating in compromised fixation scenarios.
Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid has become such a part of the COVID-19 treatment scene in the U.S. that it’s easy to forget it’s only authorized for emergency use. That could soon change. The FDA is convening its Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee March 16 to consider Pfizer’s NDA for the co-packaged nirmatrelvir and ritonavir treatment.
Despite the new Medicare inflation rebate, the U.S. price of 27 Part B drugs grew faster than inflation in the last quarter of 2022, triggering the new rebate provision in the Inflation Reduction Act. The manufacturers of those single-source drugs will be billed for the rebates in 2025, but Medicare beneficiaries should see a drop in their coinsurance for those drugs, for the next quarter at least. According to the Biden administration, the decrease in out-of-pocket costs for those drugs will range from $2 to as much as $390 per average dose from April 1 through June 30.
The U.S. FDA reported that Baxter International Inc. issued an Urgent Medical Device Correction for its Life2000 ventilation systems in response to reports of potential patient oxygen desaturation events when connected to a third-party oxygen concentrator.
The U.S. Veterans Health Administration (VA) is being applauded for doing what Medicare has refused to do – provide coverage for Leqembi (lecanemab) in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Under the March 13 VA decision, the Eisai Co. Ltd. drug, which was partnered with Biogen Inc. and granted accelerated approval in January, will be listed as a nonformulary therapy that must be prescribed by a VA-board certified neurologist, geriatric psychiatrist or geriatrician who specializes in treating dementia.
As the aftershocks of two U.S. bank failures rattled global markets, the Biden administration rushed to calm the nerves of the world and to prevent an even bigger tremor. “The banking system is safe,” President Joe Biden said March 13, as he assured companies and individuals who had accounts with Silicon Valley Bank or Signature Bank that they would have access to all their deposits now that the federal government has taken over the failed banks – including deposits exceeding the $250,000 protected by the FDIC.
Irvine Calif.-based Inari Medical Inc. reported results from what it described as the largest prospective study of interventional treatment in high-risk pulmonary embolism (PE), which found a 90% survival improvement in high-risk pulmonary embolism using the company’s Flowtriever System. Data from the FLAME (Flowtriever for Acute Massive Pulmonary Embolism) study in high-risk PE was presented at the 2023 American College of Cardiology (ACC) conference on March 5.
Pricing won’t be known until later for Pfizer Inc.’s Zavzpret (zavegepant), which became the first and only calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonist nasal spray approved by the U.S. FDA for acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. The product is slated to launch this summer. Meanwhile, Wall Street has questions about New York-based Pfizer’s performance in the migraine space.
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