On January 10, 2024, the USPTO published guidelines for assessing enablement in view of Amgen v. Sanofi and other recent court cases (“the Guidelines”). The Guidelines state that they are not intended to “announce any major changes to USPTO practice or procedure” but instead “incorporat[e] guidance from the Amgen decision…
On January 23, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”) issued its decision granting the USPTO’s request to remand Xencor’s appeal of the rejection of U.S. Patent App. No 16/803,690 (“’690 patent application”) back to the USPTO. The USPTO requested remand so that the USPTO’s…
On January 5, 2024, in litigation between REGENXBIO and Sarepta Therapeutics, Judge Richard Andrews of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware District Court granted summary judgment for Sarepta and ruled that University of Pennsylvania’s (“Penn”) U.S. Patent No. 10,526,617 (the ’617 Patent; licensed to REGENXBIO) is invalid…
On December 15, 2023, Vertex announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency has adopted a positive opinion for the conditional approval of CASGEVY (exagamglogene autotemcel [exa-cel]), a CRISPR/Cas9 gene-edited therapy, for the treatment of severe sickle cell disease (SCD) and transfusion-dependent beta…
As an update to our previous report, Biocon Biologics Ltd. (a subsidiary of Biocon Ltd.) announced the successful completion of the transition of the acquired biosimilars business in approximately 120 countries, a year ahead of schedule. On December 18, 2023, IAVI, a global nonprofit scientific research organization, and Spanish biopharmaceutical…
Bayer’s aflibercept 8 mg recommended for approval in Europe: On November 10, 2023, Bayer announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has adopted a positive opinion recommending aflibercept 8 mg for approval for extended treatment intervals in two major retinal…
FDA grants interchangeable designation to Pfizer’s adalimumab biosimilar – On October 5, 2023, Pfizer Inc. announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated ABRILADA (adalimumab-afzb) as an interchangeable biosimilar to HUMIRA (adalimumab). ABRILADA was originally approved by the FDA in November 2019. The new interchangeable designation was…
We previously reported on Bristol-Myers Squibb’s (“BMS”) complaint alleging AstraZeneca’s PD-L1 antibody product, IMFINZI (durvalumab), infringed U.S. Patent No. 9,402,899 (“the ’899 patent”). BMS alleged that the ’899 patent covers “Nobel Prize winning methods of treating cancer” by using “an antibody to inhibit the interaction between PD-1 and PD-L1 to…
On May 22, 2023, Boehringer Ingelheim announced that the FDA has approved the Cyltezo Pen, a new autoinjector option for Cyltezo (adalimumab-adbm). According to a previous announcement from Boehringer Ingelheim, Cyltezo is an FDA-approved Interchangeable biosimilar to Humira (adalimumab) and its commercial license will begin on July 1, 2023. Initially…
In March 2023, the FDA issued a final guidance, titled “Q13 Continuous Manufacturing of Drug Substances and Drug Products” that describes scientific and regulatory considerations for the development, implementation, operation, and lifecycle management of continuous manufacturing (CM).” CM refers to “the continuous feeding of input materials into, the transformation of…