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Does Your Scientific Narrative Resonate in the Pharmaceutical Ecosystem?

GUNJAN BHARDWAJ | November 14, 2019 | 107 views

Pharmaceutical communication is a foundational component of stakeholder engagement and management. In Europe, pharmaceutical communication traditionally focuses solely on interaction with prescribers, while in the US pharma communication also includes direct-to-consumer advertising. Strategic engagement of stakeholders requires tailored communication for different drug development phases, such as clinical trial management, key opinion leader engagement, and commercialization. In recent years, pharma has increasingly participated in conversations on medical forums and similar sites, thereby adding value to their brands. In general, scientific information is only understood by scientists or physicians. But to drive engagement, pharma communication focuses on reaching healthcare and medicine reporters and influencers, the scientific community, patient advocates, and patients.

Spotlight

Impax Laboratories

Impax Laboratories, Inc. is an integrated specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing and marketing generic and brand pharmaceutical products. We operate two divisions: Impax Generics and Impax Specialty Pharma.

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PHARMA TECH

Use of AI: Reshaping the Pharmaceutical Industry

Article | July 19, 2022

For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has counted on state-of-the-art technologies to ensure the market entry of safe and dependable medications. The recent pandemic has shown how important it is for drug companies to get new drugs and vaccines on the market as soon as possible. The incorporation of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies has greatly benefited the consumer healthcare business and the pharmaceutical industry. These technologies have been indispensable in the field of augmented intelligence, where they are used for applications such as disease detection and diagnosis, research and development, drug manufacturing, and others. How is AI Being Used Across the Pharmaceutical Sector? AI and ML are finding a plethora of applications across the pharmaceutical sector, starting from managing the process of clinical trial databases to drug discovery and disease diagnosis and treatment. These advanced technologies have further gained immense popularity with the advent of the COVID pandemic and the race to discover effective vaccines. The top-level uses of AI across the pharmaceutical sector are as follows Personalized Treatment/ Digital Therapeutics – AI is extensively being used to identify and assist drug developers to provide reliable and accurate insights for developing personalized therapeutics. Disease Identification/ Suggestive Treatment – With robust assessing abilities, AI is finding applications for the diagnosis of diseases ranging from Covid-19 to oncology to degeneration in the eyes. Drug Discovery and Manufacturing – AI assists in screening and comparing the predicted success rate of drug compounds based on biological factors with the results of the initial screening process such as rapid RNA and DNA quantification. Clinical Trials – The technology helps in identifying the most suitable candidate for the clinical trial on the basis of disease conditions, history, and additional attributes covering infection rates, ethnicity, and demographics to study the impact of the drug. The Way Ahead With growing applications in the development of novel therapeutic medications, shifting patient inclination toward personalized medicines, and the introduction of advanced medical fields such as gene therapy, AI is estimated to transform the pharmaceutical

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PHARMA TECH

How Pharma Is Utilizing AI and Analytic Capabilities to Produce Positive Results

Article | July 20, 2022

Applications for AI are as diverse as the industries that employ them, and pharma has identified the particular varieties of AI that are most effective in attaining quicker, more fruitful results across a variety of business activities. In a world where every second counts, pharma and biotech businesses are under pressure to shorten the time to insight and deliver success. As a result, leading organizations quickly realize the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) as a crucial tool for advancing their operations. Leading pharma and biotech firms have realized the potential of AI and are utilizing it to boost productivity and innovation across the board, from production to drug discovery. Their procedures have significantly benefited from the application of machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), and the results are only becoming better because AI gets stronger and "smarter" the more data it processes. Advantages Pharma Industry Can Leverage Increased effectiveness across the spectrum in the pharmaceutical industry Drug discovery accelerates Superior disease surveillance, detection, and prevention Clinical trials with lower risk Greater insight into the client NLP is used to turn clinical trial data that is text-intensive and highly categorized into the data utilized in machine learning (ML) models, allowing the computer system to apply patterns to the data and generate insights. Clinical trial data is structured and enriched, making it possible to analyze and visualize the data for use in successful plans and strategies for clinical trial design, manufacturing, marketing, and other areas. Faster time to insight and improved business outcomes are the end results. A particularly true principle of machine learning applications is that the outcomes from using AI applications are only as reliable as the data itself. The Pharma Intelligence offering, which combines high-quality, extensive data from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries with advanced analytics and AI applications, has assisted customers with high-value products in resolving some of their most difficult key problems, including target prioritization, modalities innovation, competitive benchmarking, clinical trial design and deployment, and more.

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BUSINESS INSIGHTS

Why Is Diversity of Thought Essential for Developing a Winning Strategy?

Article | June 30, 2022

In developing or evolving a strategy, there are key decision moments. Those are the moments where you are deciding where you need to focus, what you need to excel at to win there, and where and how to allocate resources to get to a point in the future. At these moments, it is the contest of ideas that matters. Having choices matters. Having a cross-functional team participating in the development of strategy is one way of ensuring that you are going to be more successful at generating choices before you start making choices. What Is a Cross-functional Team? A cross-functional team is a collection of individuals with varied skillsets from different areas of a business collaborating to achieve a common goal. Why Are Cross-functional Teams Essential for Business Success? Having this diverse set of minds analysing the situation, considering the big picture and the organisation’s capabilities, and the needs of all stakeholders, inspires teams to think about the choices they have differently and more creatively. For example, in a pharmaceutical setting, the medical affairs team brings knowledge of the data, unmet needs, and insight into clinical practice. Access and reimbursement teams identify the right data and take the lead in building that value story to accelerate market access and product uptake. It is incumbent upon commercial to hear their ideas, obtain their perspective and secure their alignment to all strategy decisions. Cross-functional collaboration can help break down silos. Research suggests that working in silos and not sharing data with team members from other departments can cost a company close to $8,000 per day in wasteful expenses. Time is widely recognised as a scarce resource: we need quick access to accurate and real-time insights to make effective business decisions. Real time insight will come from those closest to the customer, so it is important for cross-functional members from different geographies to participate in the development of strategy. Improved insight is a source of sustainable competitive advantage. One single version of the truth is what is required for the right narrative to take place. The right narrative will lead to the right decisions. One single version of the truth is more easily achieved by cross-functional team members working closely together. Better Innovation & Creativity: Individuals with diverse skillsets often explore a problem in different ways. When different people working in different capacities come together, they think outside the box to significantly improve outcomes. It is a great way to come up with concepts that distinguish companies from their competitors. Achieving alignment with strategy across functions and geographies: Today, businesses are moving faster than ever and organisations are seeing possible competitors in areas they never knew existed before. With so much choice about where to focus, you really want your workforce to align around one strategy. Underperformance is inevitable if everybody is off working in ten different directions. Improving the customer experience: Creating an effective customer experience is about more than just ensuring your customers receive the products and services they desire in a timely and efficient manner. It’s also about creating touchpoints with real people who can organically evangelise and grow your brand through their social media and offline interactions with friends and family. Your customers are engaging with multiple communication channels– official websites, social platforms, virtual platforms, medical science liaisons, sales reps, and more. Everyone needs to be aware of, and understand, the moments that matter to your customer and the business along that customer journey and how they contribute to delivering that positive experience. This is more likely to be achieved with a cross-functional approach to strategy development. Business Agility: Cross-functional teams are typically small, adaptable, and flexible. Such teams can move faster as they don’t have to wait and rely on other departments or external sources. They can help in tackling any silo mentality and bridge gaps between team members. They can come together to consider new information and/or changes to adapt the strategy if necessary and/or react to any setbacks immediately. They are better placed to make decisions when problem-solving amidst uncertainty. In summary, the rapidly changing environment and new information requires medical affairs, along with access and reimbursement and commercial, to work together, to ensure that patient’s benefit from the value of new innovative therapies. Companies stand a better chance of creating a winning strategy if it is created by a cross-functional and geographically diverse team. With every team member bringing their abilities and knowledge to the table, the strategy over time can only move from strength to strength. However, if not supported correctly, a cross-functional team working on strategy can be dysfunctional and chaotic, and result in a laborious and time-consuming approach to strategy development. Digital strategy platforms such as Nmblr offer an inclusive and structured process to facilitate a strategy discussion and allow people to bring forward ideas. They do this by: working against silos – the structure provided, levels the playing field. The guidance provided equips people from different disciplines to contribute to the conversation.

Read More
PHARMA TECH

Modern Phenotypic Drug Discovery

Article | June 2, 2022

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery makes these points well. It goes over historical and recent successes of the phenotypic approach, and discusses some areas that it's opening up for discussion and research. One of these is the long-vexed question of polypharmacology: what do you do when your active compound doesn't seem to have a single target, but rather hits a whole list of stuff at varying degrees of potency? Seen from a pure target-based viewpoint, this is a failure, and you'd better start working on something else. But to be honest, there are a lot of drugs out there (and not all of them ancient legacy compounds by any means) that work this way, even if their developers didn't think so at the time. So it's not to be disparaged on principle, but that said, it's still a difficult area to make progress in because of all the variables. A good enough phenotypic hit, though, makes its own case that it's worthy of further investigation and development, even if it's not "clean" by rigorous target-based standards. But as always, your phenotypic screen had better be a good one. That is, it had really better model the human disease in a useful way, and have a good signal/noise. The authors note that you're much better off with assays that involve a gain-of-function/gain-of-signal readout, as opposed to ones that could read out just through cellular stress or cytotoxicity, which is an invitation to chase your tail. Another area the paper brings up is searching lower-molecular-weight compounds than are usually screened, down to fragment-sized. There are quite a few useful drugs out there with really low molecular weights - ibuprofen, aspirin, metformin, dimethyl fumarate, lacosamide and more - and any screening program would be happy to have discovered something as useful as those. As the authors note, hits like these in phenotypic screens might be another case of polypharmacology, or they might be hitting pathways whose "tone" we have not understood well (and for which micromolar inhibitors might work out just fine). At any rate, there might be an opportunity for fragment phenotypic screening, and even of covalent fragments (which will call for even more attention to the validity of the underlying screening model, I'd say). The paper discusses the question of target ID, which for most phenotypic programs feels like a natural progression. Most of us are innately biased towards thinking in terms of drug targets, so when a phenotypic compound emerges we want to know what it's "really" doing. And most of the time, there is such a target in there somewhere, although finding it can be quite a haul. I know of several compounds that have been kicking around for years that are obviously doing something in the assays, but no one has ever been able to pin down quite what that is! This paper makes the case for getting out of a binary mindset for target identification. They point out, correctly, that target ID is a means to an end, and that you do not actually need to identify your target to go on to clinical trials and go to the FDA for approval. I always find it surprising to find how many people are surprised by that, but it's true. You also need to realize that knowing a target may not tell you nearly as much as you would want about a compound's mechanism of action, if your new target lands in the middle of a bunch of not-well-worked-out biology. There's a good case to be made that modern chemical biology and imaging techniques have made it easier to progress things, even if you're not quite sure how they're working. We can extract huge amounts of information about the cellular effects of a given compound, and if you do a good job of matching this against a closely related structure that's phenotypically inactive, you can make a lot of headway. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't bother trying to find the target - as mentioned, this is a great way to expand the knowledge of the underlying disease, and can lead to other new programs spinning off of the phenotypic effort. But it does mean that you shouldn't freeze in fear if you don't have a target to point to. The FDA wants to see safety and efficacy, and that's what we should want to see, too, for starters. But as the paper notes at the end, phenotypic screening is going to advance at the pace of good model development. Many of these same chem-bio tools can be brought to bear on this question as well, along with advances in cell culture, organoids, and other new assay technologies. You're not going to be able (realistically) to recapitulate all the features of a human disease, so you will probably find yourself concentrating on certain features that you can make the case for driving a project on. I was very happy to see this paper reference Jack Scannell's paper on translatability (blogged about here), because its point is crucial to the whole phenotypic screening endeavour. If your underlying assay is flawed, there is nothing you can do in any other part of the project to make up for it. A poorly translatable assay is a sign that you should spend your time trying to fix it, or to go do something entirely different instead. It is not a sign that you should just keep on going, because "it's the best thing we've got". If it isn't good enough, it isn't good enough. I don't get to quote A. E. Houseman much around here, but he's right: "The toil of all that be. Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea. And still the sea is salt." If you don't fix your assay up front, you are raining into the sea.

Read More
PHARMA TECH

Biosensors: An Emerging Technology in Pharmaceuticals

Article | July 19, 2022

For decades, the pharmaceutical industry has counted on state-of-the-art technologies to ensure the market entry of safe and dependable medications. The recent pandemic has shown how important it is for drug companies to get new drugs and vaccines on the market as soon as possible. The incorporation of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies has greatly benefited the consumer healthcare business and the pharmaceutical industry. These technologies have been indispensable in the field of augmented intelligence, where they are used for applications such as disease detection and diagnosis, research and development, drug manufacturing, and others. How is AI Being Used Across the Pharmaceutical Sector? AI and ML are finding a plethora of applications across the pharmaceutical sector, starting from managing the process of clinical trial databases to drug discovery and disease diagnosis and treatment. These advanced technologies have further gained immense popularity with the advent of the COVID pandemic and the race to discover effective vaccines. The top-level uses of AI across the pharmaceutical sector are as follows Personalized Treatment/ Digital Therapeutics – AI is extensively being used to identify and assist drug developers to provide reliable and accurate insights for developing personalized therapeutics. Disease Identification/ Suggestive Treatment – With robust assessing abilities, AI is finding applications for the diagnosis of diseases ranging from Covid-19 to oncology to degeneration in the eyes. Drug Discovery and Manufacturing – AI assists in screening and comparing the predicted success rate of drug compounds based on biological factors with the results of the initial screening process such as rapid RNA and DNA quantification. Clinical Trials – The technology helps in identifying the most suitable candidate for the clinical trial on the basis of disease conditions, history, and additional attributes covering infection rates, ethnicity, and demographics to study the impact of the drug. The Way Ahead With growing applications in the development of novel therapeutic medications, shifting patient inclination toward personalized medicines, and the introduction of advanced medical fields such as gene therapy, AI is estimated to transform the pharmaceutical

Read More
PHARMA TECH

Precision Medicine: New Horizons in Pharmaceuticals

Article | July 20, 2022

Applications for AI are as diverse as the industries that employ them, and pharma has identified the particular varieties of AI that are most effective in attaining quicker, more fruitful results across a variety of business activities. In a world where every second counts, pharma and biotech businesses are under pressure to shorten the time to insight and deliver success. As a result, leading organizations quickly realize the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) as a crucial tool for advancing their operations. Leading pharma and biotech firms have realized the potential of AI and are utilizing it to boost productivity and innovation across the board, from production to drug discovery. Their procedures have significantly benefited from the application of machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), and the results are only becoming better because AI gets stronger and "smarter" the more data it processes. Advantages Pharma Industry Can Leverage Increased effectiveness across the spectrum in the pharmaceutical industry Drug discovery accelerates Superior disease surveillance, detection, and prevention Clinical trials with lower risk Greater insight into the client NLP is used to turn clinical trial data that is text-intensive and highly categorized into the data utilized in machine learning (ML) models, allowing the computer system to apply patterns to the data and generate insights. Clinical trial data is structured and enriched, making it possible to analyze and visualize the data for use in successful plans and strategies for clinical trial design, manufacturing, marketing, and other areas. Faster time to insight and improved business outcomes are the end results. A particularly true principle of machine learning applications is that the outcomes from using AI applications are only as reliable as the data itself. The Pharma Intelligence offering, which combines high-quality, extensive data from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries with advanced analytics and AI applications, has assisted customers with high-value products in resolving some of their most difficult key problems, including target prioritization, modalities innovation, competitive benchmarking, clinical trial design and deployment, and more.

Read More
BUSINESS INSIGHTS

Why Is Diversity of Thought Essential for Developing a Winning Strategy?

Article | June 30, 2022

In developing or evolving a strategy, there are key decision moments. Those are the moments where you are deciding where you need to focus, what you need to excel at to win there, and where and how to allocate resources to get to a point in the future. At these moments, it is the contest of ideas that matters. Having choices matters. Having a cross-functional team participating in the development of strategy is one way of ensuring that you are going to be more successful at generating choices before you start making choices. What Is a Cross-functional Team? A cross-functional team is a collection of individuals with varied skillsets from different areas of a business collaborating to achieve a common goal. Why Are Cross-functional Teams Essential for Business Success? Having this diverse set of minds analysing the situation, considering the big picture and the organisation’s capabilities, and the needs of all stakeholders, inspires teams to think about the choices they have differently and more creatively. For example, in a pharmaceutical setting, the medical affairs team brings knowledge of the data, unmet needs, and insight into clinical practice. Access and reimbursement teams identify the right data and take the lead in building that value story to accelerate market access and product uptake. It is incumbent upon commercial to hear their ideas, obtain their perspective and secure their alignment to all strategy decisions. Cross-functional collaboration can help break down silos. Research suggests that working in silos and not sharing data with team members from other departments can cost a company close to $8,000 per day in wasteful expenses. Time is widely recognised as a scarce resource: we need quick access to accurate and real-time insights to make effective business decisions. Real time insight will come from those closest to the customer, so it is important for cross-functional members from different geographies to participate in the development of strategy. Improved insight is a source of sustainable competitive advantage. One single version of the truth is what is required for the right narrative to take place. The right narrative will lead to the right decisions. One single version of the truth is more easily achieved by cross-functional team members working closely together. Better Innovation & Creativity: Individuals with diverse skillsets often explore a problem in different ways. When different people working in different capacities come together, they think outside the box to significantly improve outcomes. It is a great way to come up with concepts that distinguish companies from their competitors. Achieving alignment with strategy across functions and geographies: Today, businesses are moving faster than ever and organisations are seeing possible competitors in areas they never knew existed before. With so much choice about where to focus, you really want your workforce to align around one strategy. Underperformance is inevitable if everybody is off working in ten different directions. Improving the customer experience: Creating an effective customer experience is about more than just ensuring your customers receive the products and services they desire in a timely and efficient manner. It’s also about creating touchpoints with real people who can organically evangelise and grow your brand through their social media and offline interactions with friends and family. Your customers are engaging with multiple communication channels– official websites, social platforms, virtual platforms, medical science liaisons, sales reps, and more. Everyone needs to be aware of, and understand, the moments that matter to your customer and the business along that customer journey and how they contribute to delivering that positive experience. This is more likely to be achieved with a cross-functional approach to strategy development. Business Agility: Cross-functional teams are typically small, adaptable, and flexible. Such teams can move faster as they don’t have to wait and rely on other departments or external sources. They can help in tackling any silo mentality and bridge gaps between team members. They can come together to consider new information and/or changes to adapt the strategy if necessary and/or react to any setbacks immediately. They are better placed to make decisions when problem-solving amidst uncertainty. In summary, the rapidly changing environment and new information requires medical affairs, along with access and reimbursement and commercial, to work together, to ensure that patient’s benefit from the value of new innovative therapies. Companies stand a better chance of creating a winning strategy if it is created by a cross-functional and geographically diverse team. With every team member bringing their abilities and knowledge to the table, the strategy over time can only move from strength to strength. However, if not supported correctly, a cross-functional team working on strategy can be dysfunctional and chaotic, and result in a laborious and time-consuming approach to strategy development. Digital strategy platforms such as Nmblr offer an inclusive and structured process to facilitate a strategy discussion and allow people to bring forward ideas. They do this by: working against silos – the structure provided, levels the playing field. The guidance provided equips people from different disciplines to contribute to the conversation.

Read More
PHARMA TECH

Modern Phenotypic Drug Discovery

Article | June 2, 2022

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery makes these points well. It goes over historical and recent successes of the phenotypic approach, and discusses some areas that it's opening up for discussion and research. One of these is the long-vexed question of polypharmacology: what do you do when your active compound doesn't seem to have a single target, but rather hits a whole list of stuff at varying degrees of potency? Seen from a pure target-based viewpoint, this is a failure, and you'd better start working on something else. But to be honest, there are a lot of drugs out there (and not all of them ancient legacy compounds by any means) that work this way, even if their developers didn't think so at the time. So it's not to be disparaged on principle, but that said, it's still a difficult area to make progress in because of all the variables. A good enough phenotypic hit, though, makes its own case that it's worthy of further investigation and development, even if it's not "clean" by rigorous target-based standards. But as always, your phenotypic screen had better be a good one. That is, it had really better model the human disease in a useful way, and have a good signal/noise. The authors note that you're much better off with assays that involve a gain-of-function/gain-of-signal readout, as opposed to ones that could read out just through cellular stress or cytotoxicity, which is an invitation to chase your tail. Another area the paper brings up is searching lower-molecular-weight compounds than are usually screened, down to fragment-sized. There are quite a few useful drugs out there with really low molecular weights - ibuprofen, aspirin, metformin, dimethyl fumarate, lacosamide and more - and any screening program would be happy to have discovered something as useful as those. As the authors note, hits like these in phenotypic screens might be another case of polypharmacology, or they might be hitting pathways whose "tone" we have not understood well (and for which micromolar inhibitors might work out just fine). At any rate, there might be an opportunity for fragment phenotypic screening, and even of covalent fragments (which will call for even more attention to the validity of the underlying screening model, I'd say). The paper discusses the question of target ID, which for most phenotypic programs feels like a natural progression. Most of us are innately biased towards thinking in terms of drug targets, so when a phenotypic compound emerges we want to know what it's "really" doing. And most of the time, there is such a target in there somewhere, although finding it can be quite a haul. I know of several compounds that have been kicking around for years that are obviously doing something in the assays, but no one has ever been able to pin down quite what that is! This paper makes the case for getting out of a binary mindset for target identification. They point out, correctly, that target ID is a means to an end, and that you do not actually need to identify your target to go on to clinical trials and go to the FDA for approval. I always find it surprising to find how many people are surprised by that, but it's true. You also need to realize that knowing a target may not tell you nearly as much as you would want about a compound's mechanism of action, if your new target lands in the middle of a bunch of not-well-worked-out biology. There's a good case to be made that modern chemical biology and imaging techniques have made it easier to progress things, even if you're not quite sure how they're working. We can extract huge amounts of information about the cellular effects of a given compound, and if you do a good job of matching this against a closely related structure that's phenotypically inactive, you can make a lot of headway. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't bother trying to find the target - as mentioned, this is a great way to expand the knowledge of the underlying disease, and can lead to other new programs spinning off of the phenotypic effort. But it does mean that you shouldn't freeze in fear if you don't have a target to point to. The FDA wants to see safety and efficacy, and that's what we should want to see, too, for starters. But as the paper notes at the end, phenotypic screening is going to advance at the pace of good model development. Many of these same chem-bio tools can be brought to bear on this question as well, along with advances in cell culture, organoids, and other new assay technologies. You're not going to be able (realistically) to recapitulate all the features of a human disease, so you will probably find yourself concentrating on certain features that you can make the case for driving a project on. I was very happy to see this paper reference Jack Scannell's paper on translatability (blogged about here), because its point is crucial to the whole phenotypic screening endeavour. If your underlying assay is flawed, there is nothing you can do in any other part of the project to make up for it. A poorly translatable assay is a sign that you should spend your time trying to fix it, or to go do something entirely different instead. It is not a sign that you should just keep on going, because "it's the best thing we've got". If it isn't good enough, it isn't good enough. I don't get to quote A. E. Houseman much around here, but he's right: "The toil of all that be. Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea. And still the sea is salt." If you don't fix your assay up front, you are raining into the sea.

Read More
MORE ARTICLES

Spotlight

Impax Laboratories

Impax Laboratories, Inc. is an integrated specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing, manufacturing and marketing generic and brand pharmaceutical products. We operate two divisions: Impax Generics and Impax Specialty Pharma.

Related News

BUSINESS INSIGHTS

Akorn Announces FDA-approved Generic Cetrorelix Acetate for Injection 0.25 mg

Akorn Pharmaceuticals | August 17, 2022

Akorn Operating Company LLC, a specialty pharmaceutical company, announces that it received FDA approval for a generic version of Cetrorelix Acetate for Injection, 0.25 mg. This is the first approved AP-Rated bioequivalent version of Merck Serono's Cetrotide®.1 "We are pleased to announce the first approved AP-rated generic option for women receiving fertility treatments. As an increasing number of infants are being conceived via the use of ART, Akorn is excited to be able to offer a competitively priced option to support women who undergo this series of treatments. This is a welcome addition to our portfolio of more than 200 specialty and injectable generics." Akorn President and CEO Douglas Boothe Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) is defined as fertility treatments where eggs or embryos are handled for the purpose of establishing a pregnancy. 2 The FDA granted Akorn a Competitive Generic Therapy (CGT) designation for Cetrorelix, a designation intended to incentivize effective development, efficient review, and timely market entry of drugs for which there is inadequate generic competition. As the first approved applicant with the CGT designation, Akorn's Cetrorelix is eligible for 180 days of CGT market exclusivity, which will begin to run from the commercial launch of Cetrorelix. According to IQVIA, U.S. sales of Cetrorelix through June of 2022 were approximately $63 million with full year U.S. sales projection of approximately $127 million. About Cetrorelix Acetate for Injection 0.25 mg Cetrorelix is used to prevent premature ovulation during controlled ovarian stimulation. Cetrorelix blocks the effects of a natural hormone, called gonadotropin‐releasing hormone (GnRH). GnRH controls the secretion of another hormone, called luteinizing hormone (LH), which induces ovulation during the menstrual cycle. During hormone treatment for ovarian stimulation, premature ovulation may lead to eggs that are not suitable for fertilization. Cetrorelix Acetate for Injection blocks such undesirable premature ovulation. About Akorn Akorn Operating Company LLC, develops, manufactures and markets specialty pharmaceuticals. Since 1971, as an industry leader in generic products in alternate dosage forms such as ophthalmics, injectables, oral liquids, otics, topicals, inhalants and nasal sprays, we focus each day on our mission to improve lives, through the quality, availability and affordability of our products.

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BUSINESS INSIGHTS

WuXi STA Breaks Ground for New Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Facility in Middletown, Delaware

WuXi AppTec | August 17, 2022

WuXi STA, a leading Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization is pleased to announce the groundbreaking for its new 190-acre pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Middletown, Delaware. First announced in June 2021, this site will be WuXi STA's second facility in the United States, offering expanded capacity and greater flexibility to meet the needs of customers in the U.S. and around the world. The WuXi STA Middletown site is located in the Middletown Business Center at 1091 Industrial Drive, and the new state-of-the-art facility will create approximately 500 full-time jobs by 2026. Phase I of the new campus will provide formulation development, clinical and commercial drug product manufacturing services for a variety of oral and injectable dosage forms, as well as packaging, labeling, storage and distribution services for clinical trial materials and commercial drug products. WuXi STA has 12 sites across the U.S., Europe and Asia that offer a range of services and meet or exceed all regulatory standards. Together with three other drug product manufacturing sites in Couvet Wuxi City (China) and Shanghai this new facility will further enhance the company's global drug production capacity and capabilities. "The biopharmaceutical industry is part of Delaware's DNA. Over the next five years, WuXi STA plans to build a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in one of Delaware's fastest-growing communities, bringing with it good jobs and economic growth. This campus is only possible because of Delaware's world-class, innovative workforce. Thank you to WuXi STA, Middletown Mayor Kenny Branner and everyone who made this project possible." Delaware Governor John Carney "The First State continues to be a first-rate destination for businesses looking to innovate and grow," said Senator Tom Carper. "This investment by WuXi STA helps position Delaware as a continued global leader in biopharmaceuticals, further cementing the manufacturing might of one of our fastest growing communities. Delaware's workforce is ready to help build the future of our life-saving pharmaceuticals. This state-of-the-art campus will create good jobs and help fortify our supply chains here at home." "This biopharmaceutical facility is one most significant private sector investment ever in the Middletown region," said Senator Chris Coons. "I am excited about WuXi STA's decision to choose Middletown for one of their new manufacturing facilities. This isn't just the largest private-sector investment in Middletown's history – it's a defining moment that will bring many more good-paying jobs to Delaware and will further cement the First State as a world leader in biopharmaceutical research and manufacturing. Thanks are due to everyone from Middletown to Dover to Washington who helped us get to this point, whether by making continued investments in NIIMBL, improving our education system from kindergarten to our universities, or ensuring that Delaware workers have the skills manufacturers like WuXi AppTec are looking for." "As the First State, Delaware has always had a spirit of innovation – constantly seeking new opportunities and ventures that will strengthen our economy and our state as a whole," said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester. "Today's groundbreaking of the WuXi STA pharmaceutical manufacturing plant represents another step in that spirit of innovation – bringing good-paying jobs to Middletown and strengthening communities throughout Delaware. The state-of-the-art facility will bring 500 full-time jobs over the next several years, growing our state's workforce and allowing us to manufacture more goods domestically - enhancing our economic competitiveness on the global stage." "We are truly looking forward to our partnership with WuXi STA, as the groundbreaking today marks the kick-off to them making their new home in Middletown, Delaware. WuXi STA will be joining our bustling industrial area, just steps away from Clarios, Datwyler, Amazon and Breakthru Beverage, just some of the companies that have invested in Middletown. When asked by WuXi STA about our business-friendly attitude, these businesses expressed their wholehearted support for how we do business and we couldn't be more excited about WuXi STA wanting to join them, and the Town of Middletown, in our journey together," said Middletown Mayor Ken Branner. Branner added he was thankful for the support of Gov. John Carney and the Delaware Prosperity Partnership. "I would like to thank our federal, state and local partners in Delaware for their continued support in the establishment of this site," said Dr. Minzhang Chen, co-CEO of WuXi AppTec and CEO of WuXi STA. "WuXi STA continues to increase our capabilities and capacities to better serve our customers through a more robust and reliable supply chain. With our integrated Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization platform and proven quality system, we look forward to working with our customers to swiftly deliver their innovative therapies to market in order to save lives and improve healthcare for patients." About WuXi STA WuXi STA a subsidiary of WuXi AppTec is a leading pharmaceutical development and manufacturing capability and technology platform company serving the life sciences industry, with global operations. As a premier Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization WuXi STA offers its worldwide partners efficient, flexible and high-quality solutions for integrated chemical, manufacturing and controls from preclinical to commercial uses, including the development and manufacturing of small molecule, oligonucleotide, peptide and various complex chemical conjugate. About WuXi AppTec As a global company with operations across Asia, Europe, and North America, WuXi AppTec provides a broad portfolio of R&D and manufacturing services that enable the global pharmaceutical and healthcare industry to advance discoveries and deliver groundbreaking treatments to patients. Through its unique business models, WuXi AppTec's integrated, end-to-end services include chemistry drug CRDMO biology discovery, preclinical testing and clinical research services, cell and gene therapies CTDMO helping customers improve the productivity of advancing healthcare products through cost-effective and efficient solutions. WuXi AppTec received AA ESG rating from MSCI in 2021 and its open-access platform is enabling more than 5,850 collaborators from over 30 countries to improve the health of those in need – and to realize the vision that "every drug can be made and every disease can be treated."

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BUSINESS INSIGHTS

Novavax Submits Application to the U.S. FDA for Emergency Use Authorization for Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine,

Novavax, Inc. | August 16, 2022

Novavax, Inc. a biotechnology company dedicated to developing and commercializing next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases, announced that it submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorization of its protein-based COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 as a homologous and heterologous booster in adults aged 18 and older. "It's important for people to have a choice as they evaluate how to stay protected against COVID-19, and boosters are an invaluable tool to build upon immunity obtained from previous vaccinations. Based on the data presented to the FDA's VRBPAC and the CDC ACIP, we believe our vaccine offers a broad, long-lasting immune response against a range of variants." Stanley C. Erck, President and Chief Executive Officer, Novavax Authorized Use The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted is authorized for use under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to provide a two-dose primary series for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in individuals 18 years of age and older. About the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted (NVX-CoV2373) The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted is a protein-based vaccine engineered from the genetic sequence of the first strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease. The vaccine was created using Novavax' recombinant nanoparticle technology to generate antigen derived from the coronavirus spike (S) protein and is formulated with Novavax' patented saponin-based Matrix-M™ adjuvant to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies. The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted contains purified protein antigen and can neither replicate, nor can it cause COVID-19. The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted is packaged as a ready-to-use liquid formulation in a vial containing ten doses. The vaccination regimen calls for two 0.5 ml doses (5 mcg antigen and 50 mcg Matrix-M adjuvant) given intramuscularly 21 days apart. The vaccine is stored at 2°- 8° Celsius, enabling the use of existing vaccine supply and cold chain channels. Use of the vaccine should be in accordance with official recommendations. About Matrix-M™ Adjuvant Novavax' patented saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant has demonstrated a potent and well-tolerated effect by stimulating the entry of antigen-presenting cells into the injection site and enhancing antigen presentation in local lymph nodes, boosting immune response. About Novavax Novavax, Inc. is a biotechnology company that promotes improved health globally through the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases. The company's proprietary recombinant technology platform harnesses the power and speed of genetic engineering to efficiently produce highly immunogenic nanoparticles designed to address urgent global health needs. The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted, the company's COVID-19 vaccine, has received authorization from multiple regulatory authorities globally, including in the U.S., European Union and with the World Health Organization. The vaccine is currently under review by multiple regulatory agencies worldwide, including for additional indications and populations such as adolescents and as a booster. In addition to its COVID-19 vaccine, Novavax is also currently evaluating a COVID-seasonal influenza combination vaccine candidate in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial, which combines the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted and NanoFlu*, its quadrivalent influenza investigational vaccine candidate, and is also evaluating an Omicron strain-based vaccine as well as a bivalent format Omicron-based / original strain-based vaccine. These vaccine candidates incorporate Novavax' proprietary saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies.

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BUSINESS INSIGHTS

Akorn Announces FDA-approved Generic Cetrorelix Acetate for Injection 0.25 mg

Akorn Pharmaceuticals | August 17, 2022

Akorn Operating Company LLC, a specialty pharmaceutical company, announces that it received FDA approval for a generic version of Cetrorelix Acetate for Injection, 0.25 mg. This is the first approved AP-Rated bioequivalent version of Merck Serono's Cetrotide®.1 "We are pleased to announce the first approved AP-rated generic option for women receiving fertility treatments. As an increasing number of infants are being conceived via the use of ART, Akorn is excited to be able to offer a competitively priced option to support women who undergo this series of treatments. This is a welcome addition to our portfolio of more than 200 specialty and injectable generics." Akorn President and CEO Douglas Boothe Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) is defined as fertility treatments where eggs or embryos are handled for the purpose of establishing a pregnancy. 2 The FDA granted Akorn a Competitive Generic Therapy (CGT) designation for Cetrorelix, a designation intended to incentivize effective development, efficient review, and timely market entry of drugs for which there is inadequate generic competition. As the first approved applicant with the CGT designation, Akorn's Cetrorelix is eligible for 180 days of CGT market exclusivity, which will begin to run from the commercial launch of Cetrorelix. According to IQVIA, U.S. sales of Cetrorelix through June of 2022 were approximately $63 million with full year U.S. sales projection of approximately $127 million. About Cetrorelix Acetate for Injection 0.25 mg Cetrorelix is used to prevent premature ovulation during controlled ovarian stimulation. Cetrorelix blocks the effects of a natural hormone, called gonadotropin‐releasing hormone (GnRH). GnRH controls the secretion of another hormone, called luteinizing hormone (LH), which induces ovulation during the menstrual cycle. During hormone treatment for ovarian stimulation, premature ovulation may lead to eggs that are not suitable for fertilization. Cetrorelix Acetate for Injection blocks such undesirable premature ovulation. About Akorn Akorn Operating Company LLC, develops, manufactures and markets specialty pharmaceuticals. Since 1971, as an industry leader in generic products in alternate dosage forms such as ophthalmics, injectables, oral liquids, otics, topicals, inhalants and nasal sprays, we focus each day on our mission to improve lives, through the quality, availability and affordability of our products.

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BUSINESS INSIGHTS

WuXi STA Breaks Ground for New Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Facility in Middletown, Delaware

WuXi AppTec | August 17, 2022

WuXi STA, a leading Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization is pleased to announce the groundbreaking for its new 190-acre pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Middletown, Delaware. First announced in June 2021, this site will be WuXi STA's second facility in the United States, offering expanded capacity and greater flexibility to meet the needs of customers in the U.S. and around the world. The WuXi STA Middletown site is located in the Middletown Business Center at 1091 Industrial Drive, and the new state-of-the-art facility will create approximately 500 full-time jobs by 2026. Phase I of the new campus will provide formulation development, clinical and commercial drug product manufacturing services for a variety of oral and injectable dosage forms, as well as packaging, labeling, storage and distribution services for clinical trial materials and commercial drug products. WuXi STA has 12 sites across the U.S., Europe and Asia that offer a range of services and meet or exceed all regulatory standards. Together with three other drug product manufacturing sites in Couvet Wuxi City (China) and Shanghai this new facility will further enhance the company's global drug production capacity and capabilities. "The biopharmaceutical industry is part of Delaware's DNA. Over the next five years, WuXi STA plans to build a state-of-the-art pharmaceutical manufacturing campus in one of Delaware's fastest-growing communities, bringing with it good jobs and economic growth. This campus is only possible because of Delaware's world-class, innovative workforce. Thank you to WuXi STA, Middletown Mayor Kenny Branner and everyone who made this project possible." Delaware Governor John Carney "The First State continues to be a first-rate destination for businesses looking to innovate and grow," said Senator Tom Carper. "This investment by WuXi STA helps position Delaware as a continued global leader in biopharmaceuticals, further cementing the manufacturing might of one of our fastest growing communities. Delaware's workforce is ready to help build the future of our life-saving pharmaceuticals. This state-of-the-art campus will create good jobs and help fortify our supply chains here at home." "This biopharmaceutical facility is one most significant private sector investment ever in the Middletown region," said Senator Chris Coons. "I am excited about WuXi STA's decision to choose Middletown for one of their new manufacturing facilities. This isn't just the largest private-sector investment in Middletown's history – it's a defining moment that will bring many more good-paying jobs to Delaware and will further cement the First State as a world leader in biopharmaceutical research and manufacturing. Thanks are due to everyone from Middletown to Dover to Washington who helped us get to this point, whether by making continued investments in NIIMBL, improving our education system from kindergarten to our universities, or ensuring that Delaware workers have the skills manufacturers like WuXi AppTec are looking for." "As the First State, Delaware has always had a spirit of innovation – constantly seeking new opportunities and ventures that will strengthen our economy and our state as a whole," said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester. "Today's groundbreaking of the WuXi STA pharmaceutical manufacturing plant represents another step in that spirit of innovation – bringing good-paying jobs to Middletown and strengthening communities throughout Delaware. The state-of-the-art facility will bring 500 full-time jobs over the next several years, growing our state's workforce and allowing us to manufacture more goods domestically - enhancing our economic competitiveness on the global stage." "We are truly looking forward to our partnership with WuXi STA, as the groundbreaking today marks the kick-off to them making their new home in Middletown, Delaware. WuXi STA will be joining our bustling industrial area, just steps away from Clarios, Datwyler, Amazon and Breakthru Beverage, just some of the companies that have invested in Middletown. When asked by WuXi STA about our business-friendly attitude, these businesses expressed their wholehearted support for how we do business and we couldn't be more excited about WuXi STA wanting to join them, and the Town of Middletown, in our journey together," said Middletown Mayor Ken Branner. Branner added he was thankful for the support of Gov. John Carney and the Delaware Prosperity Partnership. "I would like to thank our federal, state and local partners in Delaware for their continued support in the establishment of this site," said Dr. Minzhang Chen, co-CEO of WuXi AppTec and CEO of WuXi STA. "WuXi STA continues to increase our capabilities and capacities to better serve our customers through a more robust and reliable supply chain. With our integrated Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization platform and proven quality system, we look forward to working with our customers to swiftly deliver their innovative therapies to market in order to save lives and improve healthcare for patients." About WuXi STA WuXi STA a subsidiary of WuXi AppTec is a leading pharmaceutical development and manufacturing capability and technology platform company serving the life sciences industry, with global operations. As a premier Contract Research, Development, and Manufacturing Organization WuXi STA offers its worldwide partners efficient, flexible and high-quality solutions for integrated chemical, manufacturing and controls from preclinical to commercial uses, including the development and manufacturing of small molecule, oligonucleotide, peptide and various complex chemical conjugate. About WuXi AppTec As a global company with operations across Asia, Europe, and North America, WuXi AppTec provides a broad portfolio of R&D and manufacturing services that enable the global pharmaceutical and healthcare industry to advance discoveries and deliver groundbreaking treatments to patients. Through its unique business models, WuXi AppTec's integrated, end-to-end services include chemistry drug CRDMO biology discovery, preclinical testing and clinical research services, cell and gene therapies CTDMO helping customers improve the productivity of advancing healthcare products through cost-effective and efficient solutions. WuXi AppTec received AA ESG rating from MSCI in 2021 and its open-access platform is enabling more than 5,850 collaborators from over 30 countries to improve the health of those in need – and to realize the vision that "every drug can be made and every disease can be treated."

Read More

BUSINESS INSIGHTS

Novavax Submits Application to the U.S. FDA for Emergency Use Authorization for Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine,

Novavax, Inc. | August 16, 2022

Novavax, Inc. a biotechnology company dedicated to developing and commercializing next-generation vaccines for serious infectious diseases, announced that it submitted an application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Emergency Use Authorization of its protein-based COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 as a homologous and heterologous booster in adults aged 18 and older. "It's important for people to have a choice as they evaluate how to stay protected against COVID-19, and boosters are an invaluable tool to build upon immunity obtained from previous vaccinations. Based on the data presented to the FDA's VRBPAC and the CDC ACIP, we believe our vaccine offers a broad, long-lasting immune response against a range of variants." Stanley C. Erck, President and Chief Executive Officer, Novavax Authorized Use The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted is authorized for use under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to provide a two-dose primary series for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in individuals 18 years of age and older. About the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted (NVX-CoV2373) The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted is a protein-based vaccine engineered from the genetic sequence of the first strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 disease. The vaccine was created using Novavax' recombinant nanoparticle technology to generate antigen derived from the coronavirus spike (S) protein and is formulated with Novavax' patented saponin-based Matrix-M™ adjuvant to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies. The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted contains purified protein antigen and can neither replicate, nor can it cause COVID-19. The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted is packaged as a ready-to-use liquid formulation in a vial containing ten doses. The vaccination regimen calls for two 0.5 ml doses (5 mcg antigen and 50 mcg Matrix-M adjuvant) given intramuscularly 21 days apart. The vaccine is stored at 2°- 8° Celsius, enabling the use of existing vaccine supply and cold chain channels. Use of the vaccine should be in accordance with official recommendations. About Matrix-M™ Adjuvant Novavax' patented saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant has demonstrated a potent and well-tolerated effect by stimulating the entry of antigen-presenting cells into the injection site and enhancing antigen presentation in local lymph nodes, boosting immune response. About Novavax Novavax, Inc. is a biotechnology company that promotes improved health globally through the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative vaccines to prevent serious infectious diseases. The company's proprietary recombinant technology platform harnesses the power and speed of genetic engineering to efficiently produce highly immunogenic nanoparticles designed to address urgent global health needs. The Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted, the company's COVID-19 vaccine, has received authorization from multiple regulatory authorities globally, including in the U.S., European Union and with the World Health Organization. The vaccine is currently under review by multiple regulatory agencies worldwide, including for additional indications and populations such as adolescents and as a booster. In addition to its COVID-19 vaccine, Novavax is also currently evaluating a COVID-seasonal influenza combination vaccine candidate in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial, which combines the Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine, Adjuvanted and NanoFlu*, its quadrivalent influenza investigational vaccine candidate, and is also evaluating an Omicron strain-based vaccine as well as a bivalent format Omicron-based / original strain-based vaccine. These vaccine candidates incorporate Novavax' proprietary saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies.

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