N is for Nivolumab

With just over a month left until the end of year, we decided to bring together the biggest and best pharmaceutical news from over the last 12 months to make sure you’re up to date when it comes to our ever growing industry. An opportunity to look at how far we’ve come in our fight against the world’s deadliest and most widespread diseases, and how very far we still have to go in finding new drug targets and treatments against many more. From Antibiotics to Zika, drug discovery to regulatory approval, new treatments, better medicines, healthcare cuts and novel approaches – all to find solutions to the many unmet calls for aid seen around the globe, let European Pharmaceutical Review put you in the know.

N is for Nivolumab

In January, The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has said ‘yes’ to Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo (nivolumab) as monotherapy for treating advanced skin cancer in final draft guidance.

Then in June, The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommended Opdivo (nivolumab) with Yervory (ipilimumab) for the treatment of patients with advanced melanoma.

Nivolumab and ipilimumab are part of an exciting new class of immunotherapy cancer treatments that disable the natural restrictions, preventing the immune system fighting cancer cells.

In October however, The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) asked Bristol-Myers Squibb to set out a case for including nivolumab (Opdivo, Bristol-Myers Squibb) in the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF).

NICE’s appraisal committee concluded that nivolumab was not cost-effective for all patients with squamous and non-squamous advanced non-small-cell lung cancer but it did appear to benefit some more than others, a benefit they intend to explore further.

Finally, NICE issued final draft guidance which says nivolumab (Opdivo, Bristol–Myers Squibb) should be made available to people who have been previously treated for advanced renal cell cancer (RCC) – a type of kidney cancer.

NICE approved the drug for head and neck cancer after a Phase III trial showed it doubled patient survival rates. 

Further studies will take place; Bristol-Myers Squibb and Infinity will collaborate on a clinical trial to evaluate Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Opdivo in combination with Infinity’s IPI-549 in patients with advanced solid tumours.

The dose-escalation portion exploring IPI-549 as a monotherapy in Infinity’s Phase 1 study is continuing, and the first dose-escalation cohort studying IPI-549 in combination with Opdivo, a PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor, is expected to begin this fall.

IPI-549 is an oral immuno-oncology development candidate that is designed to selectively inhibit phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)-gamma and is the only investigational PI3K-gamma inhibitor in clinical development.

A is for Antibiotics

B is for Biosimilars

C is for Cancer Drugs Fund

D is for Dementia

E is for Epilepsy

F is for Funding

G is for Gene

H is for Hepatitis C

I is for Immuno-oncology

J is for Joint Pain

K is for Kidney

L is for Lab Automation

M is for MRSA

Check back tomorrow for the next letter in our pharma alphabet!

What do you think? We’d love to hear from you so drop us a comment below and tell us your thoughts.

CALL FOR WRITERS

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