Recent and upcoming US FDA advisory committee meetings and a summary of topics covered.

Verzenios, Lilly’s new drug for metastatic breast cancer, has been OKd by NICE for use on the national health service in England and Wales. In terms of gaining market share it is some way behind two other competitor drugs, Pfizer’s Ibrance and Novartis’s Kisqali, but it has some clinical advantages that could allow it to gain uptake.

Report by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review will seek to inform the public policy debate on price increases for prescription drugs.

Vertex and bioindustry groups have called on a UK inquiry investigating the availability of the cystic fibrosis drug Orkambi on the National Health Service not to publish confidential information.

Synthetic control group derived from historical clinical trial data could augment smaller randomized trials and yield better information than single-arm studies, but this approach should not be viewed as a substitute for randomized trials where feasible, US FDA officials said at a Friends of Cancer Research meeting.

Daily round-up of news and notes from the 2019 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco: US generics see gains, researcher calls for more tech transfer, and biotech investor sentiment rises as big deals bring optimism – among other items from the last day of this year's JPM. 

With a new US Congress just convening, OTC monograph reform advocates face an old problem: the need for Senate action. The House has already cleared an OTC reform measure, as part of a pandemic preparedness bill, in the first days of the legislative session.

Daily round-up of news and notes from the 2019 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco: AstraZeneca's net prices set to slide in 2019; biotechs ponder disasters from government shutdown; Denali moves into gene therapy; Sangamo clarifies partnering strategy; and Scrip talks to Allergan and Aptinyx about upcoming NMDA data releases.

An officially released new regulation in China legalizes overseas inspections of drug and device makers, making the risk-based inspections routine tasks that could also expand to manufacturers' R&D partners and third-party suppliers of ingredients, excipients or packaging materials.

Though they remain unpaid, hundreds of furloughed FDA employees will return to duty to conduct routine surveillance inspections of high-risk manufacturing facilities.

With a new US Congress just convening, OTC monograph reform advocates face an old problem: the need for Senate action. The House has already cleared an OTC reform measure, as part of a pandemic preparedness bill, in the first days of the legislative session.

EllaOne manufacturer HRA Pharma supports British Pregnancy Advisory Service's call to scrap mandatory consultations for emergency contraceptives by switching the medicines from pharmacy-only sales to OTC. BPAS says there are “no risks which outweigh its use and it is considerably safer than many medicines sold straight from the shelf in the UK."

Clorox and Procter & Gamble embarked on a strategic licensing partnership to market Burt’s Bees toothpastes, available now in mass retail doors. Billed as simple formulas for adults and kids, with or without fluoride, the line marks the third swing at toothpaste for the iconic natural brand.