While teplizumab has the potential to be a new type of diabetes medicine, it’s had a checkered past, and the contingencies in the deal with Sanofi reflect that. In 2010, Eli Lilly and partner MacroGenics were developing the drug and decided to shelve it after a study failed to reduce insulin use in patients with recent-onset Type 1 diabetes.
Provention got interested as continuing academic studies suggested benefits for the drug and bought the rights in 2018. By 2019, the purchase seemed like a good bet as researchers published a study in The New England Journal of Medicine that found the drug could delay the onset of disease with a single 14-day course of treatment.
The trial included 76 relatives of Type 1 diabetes patients who were themselves at high risk of developing the disease. Many of the patients went on to be diagnosed with the condition, but the median time to diagnosis for patients taking teplizumab was four years, compared with two years in the placebo group. READ MORE
By Kristin Jensen
Sourc: biopharmadive.com
The U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has introduced several new measures to make it easier to run clinical trials in the country, marking the first time in 20 years the regulatory body has made such an overhaul.
Diabetes drugmaker Novo Nordisk is partnering with Dewpoint Therapeutics in a deal aimed at uncovering new treatments for insulin resistance by targeting cellular droplets known as biomolecular condensates. Dewpoint will receive $55 million upfront from Novo, which plans to develop small molecule drugs against targets discovered using Dewpoint’s technology.
Sanofi has secured approval for Dupixent (dupilumab) from the European Commission (EC) to treat severe atopic dermatitis in children aged six months to five years, who are systemic therapy candidates, in the European Union (EU). This approval makes Dupixent the first and only medicine available in the US and Europe for the treatment of such young children.
