recent pharma news

Merck’s Sotatercept Clears Phase III Trial Merck’s USD 11.5 billion acquisition of Acceleron last year was based on the promise of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) candidate sotatercept, which has recently met the mark in a much-anticipated phase III trial. The STELLAR trial found that adding the activin re...

Daiichi Sankyo Receives the First Approval for its Blood Cancer Drug Ezharmia Daiichi Sankyo has received the first global approval for Ezharmia, a first-in-class dual EZH1 and EZH2 inhibitor for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL). The Japanese Ministry of ...

AstraZeneca’s Danicopan Shows Positive Results in Phase III Trial Danicopan, an oral Factor D inhibitor developed by AstraZeneca, was expected to fail a phase II trial in rare kidney disease in 2020, but a new readout could revive the drug. Danicopan (ALXN2040) has demonstrated efficacy as an adjunct treatment f...

Amgen Reveals the Top-line Result of its CodeBreak-200 trial of Lumakras in Lung Cancer The top-line result of Amgen's CodeBreak-200 trial of Lumakras in lung cancer was presented in abstract form at ESMO two weeks ago, showing a 34% improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) compared to chemotherapy. The fu...

FDA Approves AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi for Biliary Tract Cancer Imfinzi, a checkpoint inhibitor developed by AstraZeneca, has been approved by the FDA as the first immunotherapy for biliary tract cancer (BTC), a rare and aggressive form of cancer with few treatment options. Imfinzi (durvalumab) has been approved by ...

Aktis Oncology Raises USD 84 Million To Advance Novel Targeted Alpha Radiopharmaceuticals Aktis Oncology has raised an additional USD 84 million in its Series A round, adding to the USD 72 million raised last year to help bring its radiopharmaceuticals to market. The extension to the first round included Merck's...

Novartis’ Canakinumab Fails in Phase III Trials for NSCLC Canakinumab's prospects as an anticancer therapy were already dwindling when a third phase III trial in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) failed to reach its objectives. The most recent setback came from the CANOPY-A study, which included patients with N...

FDA Approves Keytruda in Both Adjuvant and Neoadjuvant Setting in High-Risk Early-Stage TNBC In July 2021, the US FDA approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for high-risk, early-stage triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in combination with chemotherapy as neoadjuvant treatment and then continued as a single agent as...

Hepion Pharma's NASH drug is set for Phase 2b after clearing the safety bar Hepion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapeutic drugs for the liver disease treatment arising from non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), declaring positive topline results from...

UNITY Biotechnology declares positive data from phase 1 clinical trial of UBX1325 in Advanced Vascular Eye Disease patients  UNITY Biotechnology, Inc., a biotechnology company developing therapeutics to decrease, impede, or reverse diseases of aging, declared positive data from its Phase 1 safety study of U...