A report by PhRMA suggests that the industry is looking at a robust pipeline. Among the trade group’s findings: more than 5,000 new medications are being studied and 70% are “potential first-in-class medicines,” meaning a high potential for patent-loss replacements. The research, however, is not necessarily focused solely on broad-based applications: the interest group said that rare diseases, for example, continue to garner attention, with about 140 potential medicines being researched in the past decade, compared to 64 twenty years ago.
Clinical trial results indicate Amgen’s anemia drug Aranesp is not a help for heart failure patients, reported Forbes. The Phase III testing started in 2006 with 2,278 patients, and today’s announcement indicates the results missed the primary endpoint. Separately, the company said it will build a $200 million new manufacturing plant in Singapore for monoclonal antibodies.
