The US FDA has issued Indian drugmaker a 483 with five observations following a pre-approval inspection of an API plant in Bangalore. [Story corrected 01/28 9am ET] – The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) carried out the inspection at the site in Bangalore, India last week and issued a Form 483 with five observations. “We will respond to the FDA with a Corrective and Preventive Action Plan (CAPA) and are confident of addressing these observations expeditiously. We remain committed…
Manufacturing issues and a scarcity of new commercial products leave predictions that 10-20 cell and gene therapy approvals each year by 2025 somewhat fanciful, says Dark Horse Consulting. In his plenary address at the Phacilitate conference yesterday, Anthony Davies, founder of cell and gene therapy specialist firm Dark Horse Consulting, reflected on the difficulties the sector has faced since the high of 2017 when three products achieved US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval: Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) and Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel),…
China has approved tislelizumab, a drug for Hodgkin’s lymphoma developed by BeiGene and made locally by Boehringer Ingelheim. The monoclonal antibody (Mab) is the first biopharmaceutical approved under China’s recently modified Drug Administration Law (DAL). The law was revised in August introducing a marketing authorization holder (MAH) system similar to those in the US and EU. The revision also formalized rules governing contract manufacturing. Previously, regulatory approvals were contingent on the developer having its own manufacturing capacity in China. However, in 2015 the…
There is no risk of competitive harm between Roche’s approved hemophila A monoclonal antibody and Spark’s gene therapy candidates, say the US and UK competition bodies. In February, Swiss Biopharma firm struck a deal to buy Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based Spark Therapeutics for $4.3 billion (€3.8 billion). Now after months of investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Roche is on the verge of closing the deal. The FTC’s concerns centered on the potential competitive harm of overlaps between Roche and…
The US FDA has cited manufacturing concerns in a complete response letter (CRL) rejecting Enzyvant’s regenerative tissue therapy RVT-802. RVT-802 is a tissue-based therapy in development for congenital athymia. While the candidate has been granted Breakthrough Therapy designation, Rare Pediatric Disease designation, Orphan Drug designation, and Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has rejected the therapy due to manufacturing concerns. Roivance Sciences subsidiary Enzyvant received the CRL this week and while there were no…
The US FDA has approved a manufacturing process using a Purolite Praesto resin for the first time. Purolite says Janssen, Celgene and Biogen are among the firms working with its Praesto range of mAb capture resins. The separation tech firm told Bioprocess Insider about demand for its products last week, explaining that “Praesto resins are currently implemented into over 170 ongoing pre-clinical to Phase III projects at facilities across the globe. “This is a mix of standard and custom design…
Lonza says it is “clearly disappointed†after the Intellectual Property Tribunal in Korea ruled in favor of Samsung BioLogics in invalidating a patent relating to cell line development. Samsung BioLogics challenged fellow contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) in July 2017 regarding Lonza’s patent 1302904, entitled ‘Mammalian Expression Vector Comprising the MCMV Promoter and First Intron of HCMV Major Immediate Early Gene.’ The patent relates to a vector for transferring a gene developed for producing an antibody into a cell…
The US FDA may have made an example of Novartis in the way it handled the revelation of Zolgensma data manipulation, says the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. A month after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the one-time gene therapy Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec), marketing authorization holder Novartis alerted the agency to a data manipulation issue that impacted the accuracy of certain data from product testing performed in animals submitted in the biologics license application (BLA). In its response,…
Jynneos has become the first vaccine to be approved for non-replicating smallpox in the US and monkeypox in the world. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given Danish drugmaker the go ahead to manufacture and supply the liquid-frozen suspension of its vaccine Jynneos for smallpox and monkeypox in adults aged 18 years and over. The approval is “the culmination of a fifteen-year partnership that started with a call from the NIH [National Institutes of Health] for a safer…
President Trump has called for the modernization of influenza vaccine manufacturing. With its recombinant vaccine NanoFlu set to enter Phase III, Novavax says it offers the solution. Last week, the White House issued an ‘Executive Order [EO] on Modernizing Influenza Vaccines in the United States to Promote National Security and Public Health’ (reprinted below) aimed at addressing the “critical shortcomings†in the manufacture of such products. “Most influenza vaccines are made in chicken eggs, using a 70-year-old process that requires…