News Briefs
✦ Spending on specialty medications accounted for more than half of total drug spend for the first time last year. That’s according to the Evernorth 2020 Drug Trend Report, released in March, which noted that le...
New FDA Specialty Approvals
March 3: The FDA expanded the label for Pfizer Inc.’s Lorbrena (lorlatinib) to include the first-line treatment of people with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC...
FDA Approval Makes Breyanzi Third CAR-T Therapy in NHL
With the FDA’s approval of Bristol Myers Squibb’s (BMS) Breyanzi (lisocabtagene maraleucel) last month, there are now three chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapies to treat a certain type of non-Hodgk...
CVS-CTCA Pilot Offers In-Home Infusion of Cancer Therapies
As the U.S. surpasses 500,000 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, people with cancer continue to unsurprisingly be hesitant to visit a provider office or hospital for treatment. So, Cancer Treatment Centers of Americ...
New Long-Acting HIV Regimen May Help Patient Adherence
The FDA recently approved the first long-acting regimen for the treatment of HIV in adults. The dosing schedule could help with adherence in a condition where that is particularly crucial. However, some potential ch...
Evolution of Medicine Has Produced Novel New Treatments
Therapeutic interventions have evolved from people taking a pill every day to treat a condition to the one-time cell and gene therapies aimed at halting disease progression or even curing a disease. The rise of thes...
New FDA Specialty Approvals
✦ Feb. 3: The FDA gave accelerated approval to Merck KGaA unit EMD Serono, Inc.’s Tepmetko (tepotinib) for the treatment of adults with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring mesenchymal-epithel...
News Briefs
✦ AstraZeneca said Feb. 22 that it would voluntarily withdraw the Imfinzi (durvalumab) indication in the U.S. for previously treated adults with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma who have disease...
2021 Outlook: Gene, Orphan, CAR-T Therapies Are in Pipeline Spotlight
The pharmaceutical industry has undergone an unprecedented burst of innovation lately, led — but by no means limited to — the race to develop a vaccine to counter the COVID-19 pandemic, and this trend is showing...
Orgovyx Offers New Oral Option for People With Prostate Cancer
People being treated for advanced prostate cancer now have a new oral option, offering patients the ability to not have to visit a provider for administration — an especially welcome alternative during the COVID-1...