Manufacturing and Production

Pfizer supressed research showing their arthritis drug Enbrel reduced the risk of Alzheimer’s. This was the big revelation this week! The story prompted calls for greater transparency and more open science as researchers were outraged that such important findings could be suppressed.

Meanwhile MPs in the House of Commons discussed using Crown Use licensing rules to break Vertex’s IP rights over Orkambi. The discussion marked a new stage in the longstanding stale mate between the US firm and the British government.

Florida firm Catalyst Pharmaceuticals is suing the FDA after the agency approved a rival’s drug.

The lawsuit alleges the approval of Jacobus Pharmaceutical’s Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS) drug Ruzurgi (amifampridine) infringes on Catalyst’s drug Firdapse’s right to market exclusivity.

Jacobus claim that Ruzurgi will compete with Firdapse through being prescribed off-label. Firdapse costs twice as much as Ruzurgi.

Image Credit: AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca’s new headquarters in Cambridge, United Kingdom are expected to cost more than double the sum of £330 million that the firm budgeted for in 2013.

At a cost of £750 million so far, AstraZeneca’s new donut-shaped HQ is set to become one of the most expensive corporate buildings in the UK.  

According to AstraZeneca, the construction costs associated with the building of the 580,000 metres square headquarters on a biomedical campus south of Cambridge have soared due to “increased investment in new technologies and equipment.”

AstraZeneca has presented new Phase 3 data at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) 79th Scientific Sessions in San Francisco on its sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor Farxiga (dapagliflozin), demonstrating that the drug successfully reduced the progression of kidney disease or renal death in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Derived from 17,160 T2D patients with predominantly reserved renal function irrespective of underlying atherosclerotic CV disease (ASCVD), the data revealed that Farxiga reduced the relative risk of the composite renal-specific outcome of k

Eli Lilly’s Trulicity (dulaglutide) reduced major cardiovascular events (MACE) by 12% versus placebo in adults with type 2 diabetes, according to the results of the REWIND trial.

The study of 9901 adults with type 2 diabetes looked at the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist Trulicity in combination with standard of care treatment in comparison to standard of care treatment combined with placebo.

Image Credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inside_Aryogen.jpg

Three engineers have been killed in an explosion at a manufacturing facility in India.

Two Chinese engineers and one Indian engineer died after a boiler exploded at the Pusilin Biotechnology Private Limited facilities in the Indian state of Haryana.

The explosion happened as the three workers tried to fix the boiler at the facilities in Haryana close to New Delhi. All three workers died instantly, according to CGTN.

The news comes just weeks after ten workers were killed in an explosion in the city of Jinan.

Roche is celebrating the decision taken by the FDA to approve its anti-CD79b antibody-drug conjugate Polivy (polatuzumab vedotin-piiq) in combination with bendamustine and Rituxan (rituximab) (BR) as a treatment for relapsed or refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in who have received at least two prior therapies.

The drug regimen was approved after being granted Accelerated Approval from the FDA. The US regulator’s decision was taken based on data derived from 80 patients ineligible for haematopoietic stem cell transplant.