Encouraged by investors' growing interests in the biopharmaceutical industry amid the prolonged Covid-19 pandemic, local drugmakers are going all out to secure financial resources through massive bond issuance, market watchers said Thursday.Their moves aim to invest in new businesses and strengthen
Korean consumers are increasingly purchasing fever reducers they prefer, as the nation’s Covid-19 vaccination rate is picking up.According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, over 64.5 percent of the Korean population aged 18 or more have completed receiving the full doses of Covid-1
Biogen Korea said it would begin global phase 3 ASCEND trials of high-dose nusinersen, marketed as Spinraza, in treating patients with late-onset spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) who received Roche’s risdiplam in the past.It will conduct the second part of the ASCEND study for 2.5 years with 135 SMA pa
Takeda Korea plans to provide a new treatment option for breast cancer (BRCA) susceptibility gene-mutated ovarian cancer patients after recently receiving expanded reimbursement for Zejula.Last Friday, Zejula got expanded health insurance coverage as maintenance therapy for BRCA susceptibility gene-
Dong-A ST said that it would exclusively sell and distribute Sanofi's osteoporosis treatment Actonel (ingredient name: risedronate) 35mg, EC 35mg, and 150mg to hospitals and clinics in Korea.According to the company, Actonel is a bisphosphonate-type bone resorption inhibitor.After the body absorbs t
Pharmaceutical companies are speeding up efforts to develop a lymphocyte-activation gene 3 (LAG-3) inhibitor, a new targeted therapy.Amid the intense race to develop a LAG-3 inhibitor first, industry officials are paying attention to whether it can be a new option for patients who are resistant to e
AstraZeneca Korea said Thursday that Lynparza has become the first poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor treatment to win the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety approval to treat pancreatic and prostate cancer.The regulatory nod made Lynparza a maintenance therapy for adult patients with germlin
Psoriasis treatment has significantly improved since the mid-2000s with the arrival of biologic drugs.Therapies, including TNF-α inhibitors and interleukin inhibitors, have advanced enough to target not only PASI 75 but PASI 90 and PASI 100 in psoriasis treatment.As physicians can prescribe biologic
AbbVie’s selective and irreversible JAK inhibitor Rinvoq (upadacitinib) expanded indications for psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and atopic dermatitis, in addition to the existing rheumatoid arthritis.On Tuesday, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety authorized Rinvoq to treat psoriatic
Humedix has partnered up with a U.S. immuno-oncology developer Kineta to strengthen its CMO business and secure funding for future growth.The company said Tuesday that it has recently decided to sign a strategic investment deal with Kineta, acquiring 1.56 percent of the latter’s Kineta's shares wort
MSD released positive results from a phase 3 study of molnupiravir, an investigational pill to treat Covid-19, drawing attention from the pharmaceutical market.On Tuesday, Kyobo Securities published a monthly report to explain the meaning of the launch of Covid-19 oral treatments.Kim Jeong-hyeon, a
Roche Korea said Tuesday that it would expand the company’s neuroscience unit by receiving approval for its two mental disorder treatments -- Evrysdi (ingredient: risdiplam) and Enspryng (satralizumab) -- in five years.The company also stressed the importance of treating rare diseases, such as spina
AbbVie’s JAK inhibitor Rinvoq (upadacitinib) showed a faster therapeutic effect than Sanofi’s Dupixent (dupilumab) in evaluations of body regions (head and neck, trunk, upper limbs, and lower limbs) of patients with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis.On Thursday, AbbVie released the new analysis o
Takeda Korea's oral treatment Ninlaro (ingredient: ixazomib) has won approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety as maintenance therapy for patients with multiple myeloma who did not receive autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant.Ninlaro became the first domestic oral proteasome inhibi
Celltrion said that it has submitted a marketing authorization application (MAA) of Regkirona, a Covid-19 treatment, to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) last Friday.“The indication target is adult patients 18 years of age or older confirmed with Covid-19 who do not require supplemental oxygen sup
Sudanese Minister of Investment and International Cooperation Al-Hadi Ibrahim and Industry Minister Ibrahim al-Sheikh visited Shinpoong Pharmaceutical last Friday to discuss the company’s role in developing the African country’s pharmaceutical industry.During the visit, the two ministers toured the
Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, a U.S. partner company of Hanmi Pharmaceutical, will hold a Type-A meeting with the FDA to win approval for Rolontis (eflapegrastim), a treatment for neutropenia.Through a Type-A meeting, a company can take the feedback from the FDA and address issues impeding drug approval
The domestic botulinum toxin (BTX) drug market is going through significant changes in terms of production and import, government and business officials said.According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety Friday, the production and import of 17 BTX drugs, including Botox, Botulax, Medytoxin, and
Global pharmaceutical companies’ investment in R&D in Korea has continued to rise for the fifth consecutive year in 2020, an industry group report showed.The number of early clinical trials and studies of cancer and rare diseases increased significantly, and employment for R&D also expanded steadily
Merck’s oral antiviral treatment for Covid-19, molnupiravir, has reportedly shown potential efficacy on the variants of the Covid-19 virus, causing Korean companies to speed up efforts to develop similar oral medicines.Merck, or MSD in the U.S. and Canada, said Wednesday its experimental Covid-19 th