1. Poor countries may be paying more for Gilead Sciences’ hepatitis-C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni than wealthy countries do, according to WHO officials. A study found that a course of Sovaldi cost the equivalent of one year or more of average annual earnings in 12 countries. (STAT)
2. In other Gilead news, the drugmaker is facing a lawsuit that accuses the company of delaying a less toxic version of tenofovir, its blockbuster HIV drug, to extend its “patent-protected profits.” (LAT)
3. BioMarin Pharmaceutical said it will stop development of Kyndrisa, its experimental Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment, as well as of three other related therapies. The FDA had declined to approve Kyndrisa in January. (WSJ)
4. The FDA rejected Teva Pharmaceutical Industries’ marketing application for an experimental drug that treats Huntington’s disease. Teva picked up the drug last year in its $3.2 billion acquisition of Auspex Pharmaceuticals.(WSJ)
5. A database with more than 6,200 BRCA gene variants is providing a clearer picture of cancer risk for women who have the BRCA genes. The BRCA Share database, developed by Quest Diagnostics and Inserm, includes 375 BRCA gene variants whose roles were previously unknown. (USA Today)
