Good morning, everyone, and welcome to another working week. We hope the weekend respite was invigorating and inspiring, because that oh-too predictable routine of online meetings, phone calls, and deadlines has returned. But what can you do? The world, such as it is, continues to spin. So to give it a nudge in a better direction, we are firing up the coffee kettle to brew some cups of stimulation. Our choice today is mocha almond. Please feel free to join us. Meanwhile, we have once again assembled a few items of interest for you. Best of luck on your journey today and, of course, do keep in touch….
MorphoSys is dealing with an emerging safety issue related to pelabresib, the experimental treatment for myelofibrosis and centerpiece of its proposed $3 billion acquisition by Novartis, STAT has learned. Physicians involved with MorphoSys’ completed Phase 3 study have reported multiple cases of palebresib-treated patients who rapidly progressed from myelofibrosis, a cancer affecting the bone marrow, to acute myeloid leukemia, a more aggressive and deadlier type of blood cancer, according to two people with knowledge of the cases. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the cases have not been reported publicly.
In a challenge to the pharmaceutical industry, Doctors Without Borders has revealed the detailed costs of a study it ran for a tuberculosis treatment regimen and maintained this is the first time that expenses incurred for an individual clinical trial had been publicized, STAT writes. Moreover, the charity argued its decision should help undercut a long-standing contention by drug companies that high prices for medicines can be justified by research costs, even though expenses are never disclosed publicly. The trial in question, which examined combinations of medicines in 500-plus patients, was designed to identify the best approach to tackling multi-drug resistance to tuberculosis.
