The RET inhibitor Eli Lilly picked up in its Loxo Oncology buyout continues to deliver. On the heels of an encouraging performance in lung cancer, the drug shrank tumors in more than half of patients with a rare thyroid cancer who had already tried at least two kinase inhibitors.
The RET inhibitor Eli Lilly picked up in its Loxo Oncology buyout continues to deliver. On the heels of an encouraging performance in lung cancer, the drug shrank tumors in more than half of patients with a rare thyroid cancer who had already tried at least two kinase inhibitors.
Blueprint Medicines’ RET inhibitor BLU-667 shrank tumors in 60% of a difficult-to-treat group of lung cancer patients, teeing it up for a 2020 filing in patients with RET-altered non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had already tried chemotherapy.
Now that it has control of England’s Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF), NICE has been weeding out drugs it doesn’t consider worth their prices and thyroid cancer drugs from Sanofi and Ipsen are about to be plucked.
It is looking likely that patients in England will loose NHS access to Ipsen’s Cometriq and Sanofi Genzyme’s Caprelsa via the Cancer Drugs Fund, after cost-regulators turned down funding for their use.
AstraZeneca Completes Divestment Of Caprelsa To Genzyme
AstraZeneca's ($AZN) closely watched blood thinner Brilinta came through for the drugmaker in the second quarter, as did its diabetes franchise, allowing the British company to pull off a 2% rise in sales (at constant exchange rates) to $6.3 billion and core operating profit of $1.8 billion, or $1.21 a share. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had been expecting the company to report a profit of $1.06 a share, and the surprise sent shares up 2% in pre-market trading on Thursday to $33.67.
Genzyme, a Sanofi company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with AstraZeneca to acquire Caprelsa® (vandetanib), a rare disease therapy, indicated for the treatment of symptomatic or progressive medullary thyroid carcinoma in patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic disease.