On February 11, 2020, in the Biogen v. Amgen BPCIA litigation regarding MVASI (bevacizumab-awwb), Amgen’s biosimilar of AVASTIN, Judge Colm Connolly of the Delaware District Court denied most of Genentech’s motion to dismiss Amgen’s affirmative defenses and counterclaims. Amgen had pled counterclaims seeking declaratory judgments that the asserted patents are…
Below are a few biosimilar-related updates from the past week. Bio-Thera Solutions announced that in a Phase III clinical trial of BAT1706 (bevacizumab), BAT1706 met its primary endpoint, demonstrating “equivalence in overall response rate (ORR) for the first-line treatment of patients with non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer.” Bio-Thera indicated that…
In passing H.R. 1865, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020 (“FCAA”), on December 20, 2019, Congress adopted a number of changes to the BPCIA that impact biosimilars. Under the BPCIA, approved NDAs for biological products will be “deemed to be a license” as if approved under BLAs as of March…
Last week, Almirall signed an agreement with WuXi Biologics to collaborate on multiple bispecific antibodies targeting dermatology conditions, including atopic dermatitis. Almirall’s press release indicated that, “[u]nder the terms of the agreement, Almirall has access to WuXi Biologics’ proprietary antibody platforms including WuXiBody™ to discover multiple novel bispecific antibodies.” This…
Today, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) prequalified Samsung Bioepis’s breast cancer biosimilar trastuzumab – WHO’s first biosimilar prequalification. Prequalification is “a service provided by WHO to assess the quality, safety and efficacy of those products that address global public health priorities.” The WHO noted that the global average price of…
As previously reported, earlier this year Fresenius filed a petition for inter partes review of claims 9-10, 13-21 and 23-30 of Amgen’s pegfilgrastim patent – U.S. Patent No. 9,643,997 (“997 patent”). The challenged claims of the ’997 patent relate to methods for purifying proteins of interest expressed in a non-native…
Samsung Bioepis Co., Ltd announced today that the FDA has accepted for review an aBLA for SB8, a bevacizumab biosimilar to Roche’s Avastin® product. If approved, SB8 will be commercialized in the US by Merck & Co.
On November 15, the FDA approved Pfizer’s Humira® biosimilar, ABRILADA (adalimumab-afzb). The acting director of the Office of Therapeutic Biologics and Biosimilars in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Sarah Yim, M.D., announced the approval as one of nine new biosimilar products the FDA “has taken action on…
This month, the Star Ratings for Biosimilars Act was introduced in the House. H.R. 4629 is a bipartisan bill that requires the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to evaluate Medicare Advantage (MA) plans based on whether biosimilars are available to enrollees, and adds “a new set of…
Below are some recent highlights of biosimilar news: On August 20th, two companies announced that they had launched competing biosimilars of Eli Lilly’s FORSTEO (teriparatide) in Europe. First, Gedeon Richter announced that it launched TERROSA in Europe after it received approval from the European Commission. According to the announcement, the…