“Homology Medicines will lay off scores of its employees and stop research in a reset meant to position the company for a sale, merger or other business combination.”
1 Discontinued Drug: HMI-203 for treatment of Mucopolysaccharidosis type II (MPS II)
1 Discontinued Research Program
“In an interview with Barron’s, Narasimhan said some of the programs which Novartis discontinued were cancer drugs in early-stage trials.
“We saw assets that were noncompetitive, or we thought might be unduly affected by IRA,” Narasimhan said.
The CEO said “a few” of the cancer drugs being dropped from Novartis’s pipeline were discontinued because of price negotiations.
The drugs that were dropped were “in areas where we didn’t think we could do a development plan that would allow us to successfully get the drug in patients, and fully developed across the range of indications within nine years,” Narasimhan said. They were in cancers particularly affecting the elderly, given that Medicare treats adults aged 65 and older.”
2 Discontinued Drugs: unnamed cancer drugs
2 Discontinued Research Programs
Paused trials of rusfertide in additional indications: “In keeping with our organizational prioritization of rusfertide in PV, plans to initiate trials of rusfertide in additional disease indications have been paused. This decision was influenced in part by the recent enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States and includes previously planned trials of rusfertide in the subset of hereditary hemochromatosis patients with chronic arthropathy”
1 Discontinued Drug: rusfertide (biologic)
1 Discontinued Research Program
Eli Lilly laid blame Tuesday afternoon on President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act as the reason it scrapped a $40 million cancer drug.
As part of its third quarter update earlier Tuesday morning, the Big Pharma revealed it had removed a Phase I drug licensed from Fosun Pharma, a BCL2 inhibitor that had been undergoing studies for a variety of blood cancers. Though the reasoning had been initially unclear, an Eli Lilly spokesperson told Endpoints News in an email that “in light of the Inflation Reduction Act, this program no longer met our threshold for continued investment.”
Asked to explain how the IRA impacted this specific drug, the spokesperson highlighted the law’s impact on small molecule R&D.
“The IRA changes many dynamics for small molecules in oncology and when we integrated those changes with this program and its competitive landscape, the program’s future investment no longer met our threshold,” the spokesperson told Endpoints in a follow-up email.
1 Discontinued Drug: LOXO-338 (small molecule)
1 Discontinued Research Program
“In addition to the updated Helios-B plan, Alnylam also announced Thursday that it’s having second thoughts about developing RNA interference therapy for Stargardt disease, a rare genetic eye disease that can cause vision loss. Alnylam said it will not launch a phase 3 study of Amvuttra in Stargardt in late 2022 as previously announced.
“Alnylam attributed the pause to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which allows Medicare to directly negotiate prices of some high-expenditure drugs. Drugs with one single orphan drug designation is exempt from potential price negotiations, a term that may discourage companies from exploring approvals in additional indications, Alnylam CEO Yvonne Greenstreet noted on the call. Because Amvuttra and Onapttro already has an orphan status in ATTR, an additional orphan label could theoretically open it for potential pricing scrutiny.”
1 Discontinued Drug: Amvuttra (biologic) in Stargardt disease
1 Discontinued Research Program
