Pharmaphorum

News Moderna's respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine mResvia has struggled to make headway in the market against rival shots from GSK and Pfizer, so a new EU procurement contract could give it a boost. The European Commission has signed, at the request of six European countries, a joint procurement framework contract with Moderna to access up to 24 million doses of mResvia over the next four years.

News Ireland's Keenova is hoping that its Xiaflex therapy can become the first approved therapy for plantar fibromatosis, a debilitating condition affecting the feet. The drugmaker – which was known as Mallinckrodt before merging with Endo and rebranding as Keenova last year – said that Xiaflex (collagenase clostridium histolyticum) met its objectives in a phase 3 trial in plantar fibromatosis patients and will be filed for approval in the new indication before the end of the year.

News Alector's chief executive, Arnon Rosenthal, is turning the company's attention to early-stage in-house projects. Alector has confirmed that an alliance with GSK to develop two drug candidates for dementia has been terminated in the wake of disappointing clinical trial results.

News Lumykras, which is known as Lumakras in some markets, will no longer be covered by the Cancer Drugs Fund, according to the health technology assessment (HTA) agency. Amgen has reacted with consternation to the news that treatment with its KRAS inhibitor Lumykras will no longer be funded in England and Wales, saying the decision does not reflect experience with the lung cancer therapy since it was first made available four years ago.

The shift in commercial teams has been happening for some time. This is not new news. I have felt it many times over, like many of us who have worked in the industry for years. What we see in many cases is that field teams have become smaller. In others they have been removed entirely. The expectation to do more with less has never been greater. The elephant in the room is not just a metaphor; it is something being felt daily, especially within commercial teams.

Shares in AstraZeneca were trading down more than 8% this morning after it revealed that its transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR) therapy, Wainua, missed the mark in a trial in patients with cardiomyopathy (CM). Ionis-partnered Wainua (eplontersen) was unable to show an improvement in cardiovascular (CV) mortality and recurrent CV clinical events up to 140 weeks compared with placebo when added to standard care in the phase 3 CARDIO-TTRansform study, denting the drug's commercial prospects.

News Boehringer Ingelheim has the first European approval for its new idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) therapy, Jascayd, after the UK's MHRA gave a green light to the drug. Phosphodiesterase (PDE) 4B inhibitor Jascayd (nerandomilast) has been cleared as a twice-daily, oral therapy for adults with IPF as well as progressive pulmonary fibrosis (PPF), an umbrella term for diseases caused by progressive scarring to the lungs.

A phase 1/2 trial in the rare disease light chain amyloidosis saw 100% of patients obtaining at least a very good partial response with 90% obtaining a complete response. And they responded in an average of just over two weeks.

News While many AIs used to assist drug discovery are provided by big tech companies at a cost, a small US and China-based techbio company is taking a different tack.

In another big-ticket licensing deal with a Chinese biotech, AstraZeneca has claimed rights to a drug candidate for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) from Sino Bio for up to $2.1 billion. The agreement – which breaks down to a $200 million upfront payment and $1.9 billion in potential milestones – grants AZ ex-China rights to TQC3721, an inhaled PDE3/4 inhibitor that could be a competitor to MSD's first-in-class Ohtuvayre (ensifentrine).