Good morning, everyone, and how are you today? We are just fine, thank you, although a bit busier than usual as we get ready for another public chat. With that in mind, we have assembled a slightly abbreviated menu of tidbits for your enjoyment, since we must hustle off to our destination. Meanwhile, we hope your day goes well and is highly productive …
The high cost of hepatitis C drugs is straining prison budgets around the US, the Wall Street Journal writes. “If we can treat them they won’t go back into the community and spread it further. That’s the solution, but here is the problem — the cost of the drug,” Robert Lawrence, chief medical officer for the Alaska Department of Corrections, tells the paper.
Horizon Pharma agreed to pay about $800 million for Raptor Pharmaceutical, gaining access to Procysbi, a treatment for nephropathic cystinosis, a rare metabolic disorder. A PiperJaffray analyst notes that Horizon continues to diversify away from its primary care-focused assets in favor of higher-margin, durable orphan disease products.
Moderna Therapeutics may be breaking fundraising records, but the work environment has driven away top talent and an obsession with secrecy suggests the company has run into roadblocks with its most ambitious projects, STAT reports. And interviews with employs indicate chief executive Stéphane Bancel creates too much friction due to his ego, a need to assert control, and impatience.
Various ads from drug and device makers appear designed to alarm consumers into taking action, according to Ad Age. “If you increase an individual’s feeling that they’re susceptible to a threat, and increase the perceived severity of that threat, people are more likely to take action,” Adrienne Faerber, a lecturer at the Dartmouth Institute, tells the magazine.
A day after activist fund Starboard Value criticized his stewardship, Perrigo chief executive officer John Hendrickson is still conducting a strategic review but said decisions are coming, Bloomberg News says.
Celgene released top-line results about a new treatment for Crohn’s disease, but some Wall Street analysts took a skeptic view of the sparse amount of information released, Forbes tells us.
AstraZeneca launched two new trials with its Forxiga SGLT-2 inhibitor in hopes of finding potential beyond the drug’s approved diabetes indication, PharmaTimes tells us.
Canada has approved Brenzys, its first biosimilar version of Amgen’s Enbrel, made by Korean drug maker Samsung Bioepis, InPharma Technologist notes.
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