A busy news week focuses on drug access and costs

Submitted by blackswan on Fri, 07/21/2017 - 23:04

Patent extensions upheld and revealed

On Monday, July 17th, a US appeals court ruled that a patent on Takeda Pharmaceutical’s drug Velcade® (bortezomib) was extended to 2022. Generic drug companies had sued to invalidate Takeda’s patents but failed. This means that there will be no generic competition before the 2022 date. This is obviously very good news for Takeda and eliminates hopes that cheaper generics would be available much sooner. Paradoxically, this will also benefit Amgen’s Kyprolis® (carfilzomib), the other major proteasome inhibitor, which would have faced much stiffer competition from a much lower priced generic.

CAR T-cell therapy wins expert panel approval for leukemia treatment: What does this mean for myeloma patients?

Submitted by blackswan on Fri, 07/14/2017 - 22:44

On Wednesday, an advisory panel convened by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 10 to 0 to recommend the approval of CAR T-cell therapy for treatment of children and young adults with late-stage leukemia. Novartis’s CTL019 is a gene-altering treatment directed against the protein CD19 found on the leukemic B-cells. Wednesday’s unanimous endorsement paves the way for the first gene therapy to win FDA approval, which is expected in September.

Global Myeloma Voices Come Together to Drive Research and Improve Lives of Patients

Submitted by blackswan on Fri, 06/30/2017 - 02:55

Madrid BlogThis past week was very busy and important for the global myeloma community, which is increasingly coming together with a single voice for myeloma research and patient care. In Madrid, Spain, on the eve of the 2017 Congress of the European Hematology Association, the IMF provided platforms for many of these global research voices at the 2017 International Myeloma Working Group® (IMWG) Summit, as well as during the regular research update meeting of the IMF Black Swan Research Initiative® investigators team.

Are Cure Claims for CAR T-Cell Therapy Premature?

Submitted by blackswan on Thu, 06/08/2017 - 23:40

The top news to come out of the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which concluded on Tuesday, focused on claims that immune cellular therapy with CAR T-cells provides a potentially curative approach for myeloma. It is way too soon, in my opinion, for such suggestions, both in terms of treatment benefit and toxicities and/or side effects.

Is prevention of myeloma within reach?

Submitted by blackswan on Fri, 05/26/2017 - 01:57

Could myeloma be prevented through dietary recommendations, lifestyle changes, and occupational precautions? There is growing evidence that intervention strategies such as these might offer hope—and these ideas will be tested for the first time in the Black Swan Research-funded iStopMM® project in Iceland.

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