Industry news

1 in 6 U.S. Adults Takes a Psychiatric Drug: Study

Drugs.com

One in six U.S. adults takes a psychiatric medication to cope with conditions such as depression, anxiety and insomnia, a new study finds.

NICE Recommends Lung Cancer Drug

BioPharm International

In a draft guidance released on Dec. 2, 2016, the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended pembrolizumab for the treatment of adults with advanced lung cancer. Earlier in 2016, NICE’s appraisal committee did not recommend pembrolizumab because there were uncertainties about the drug’s long-term benefits. NICE said this was reversed when Merck, Sharp & Dohme, who market the drug, presented newer data and offered further discount on the drug.  

Payers may see biosims as a no-brainer, but marketing them won't be

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

Spurring demand for biosimilars may become the new pharma marketing challenge in 2017, even as biosimilar launches accelerate in the U.S.

Sweden joins dash to host EU drugs agency instead of London after Brexit

Daniel Dickson / Reuters

The Swedish government on Thursday launched a campaign to become the new host of the London-based European drugs agency after Britain's vote to leave the European Union and compete with offers from other EU members including Spain, France and Poland.

Drug pricing remains the big issue for 2017; Let’s not go down the rabbit hole at the FDA

John Carroll / Endpoints News

Endpoints assesses the big biopharma R&D stories of the week, with a little added commentary on what they mean for the industry.

Analysts on amyloid thesis: It's not dead yet

Ben Adams / Fierce Biotech

Just a few weeks back, many were writing off the amyloid hypothesis in Alzheimer’s after Lilly posted top-line data showing its candidate failed a phase 3. Last night, however, Biogen released some fresh data for its drug aducanumab that, alongside some more detailed info from Lilly’s failed med, may just warrant another look.

Study: IBM Watson agrees with cancer docs on treatment options 90% of the time

Amirah Al Idrus / Fierce Medical Device

Since it launched its Watson Health unit last spring, IBM has rolled out cognitive computing tools for a number of applications, including genomics and oncology. But while the Jeopardy-winning supercomputer has generated a lot of buzz, critics are still wondering: is Watson really useful in these areas?

09 December 2016

Clearside Biomedical, Inc. Announces Pricing of Public Offering of Common Stock

Clearside Biomedical , Inc. (NASDAQ:CLSD), a late-stage biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class drug therapies to treat back-of-the-eye diseases, today announced that it has commenced an underwritten public offering of  $75 million  of shares of its common stock. All of the shares in the offering will be sold by Clearside. In addition, Clearside expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional  $11.25 million  of shares of common stock at the public offering price, less the underwriting discount.

Editing set to broaden genetic blood fixes

Anette Breindl / BioWorld

Fixing genetic diseases such as hemophilia, sickle-cell disease, and certain immunodeficiencies at their root, by replacing or repairing the faulty gene, has gone from dream to drug, with two gene therapies now approved in Europe, and a number of additional approvals expected on both sides of the Atlantic over the next few years.

On a scale of 1-10: Earth gets a 3 for infectious disease readiness

Alfred Romann / BioWorld

Tuberculosis, malaria, pandemic flu and an unknown disease are among the scariest infectious disease threats according to a group of experts gathered in Qatar for a global health summit. And, on a scale of one to 10, the state of readiness of the world to deal with such an outbreak was a resounding three.