BioSpace looks at the 10 biggest drug approvals of 2021, headlined by Biogen’s Aduhelm (aducanumab) for Alzheimer’s disease and Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty.

Severe Covid-19 may trick the immune system into producing so-called autoantibodies that have the potential to eventually attack healthy tissue and cause inflammatory diseases, researchers warned in a paper published in Nature Communications. Another study suggests that the virus that causes Covid-19 may be getting better at traveling into the air

After the historic approval of the company’s first-ever drug in January 2021, Aurinia Pharmaceuticals announced the acquisition of two pipeline assets that align with the Canadian biotech’s focus on autoimmune and kidney-related disease.

Roche

Roche presented results from several Phase II and III trials at the 7th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) Annual Meeting held virtually June 19-22.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s Lupkynis (voclosporin) in combination with a background immunosuppressive therapy regimen to treat adult patients with active lupus nephritis.

After a start-of-the-year lull, activities at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are starting to pick up, according to BioSpace.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved GlaxoSmithKline plc’s Benlysta (belimumab) for the treatment of adult patients with active lupus nephritis who are receiving standard therapy.

Novartis won the go-ahead from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to conduct a randomized trial of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19 disease to see if the medicine helps patients.

Roche won the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s breakthrough therapy tag for Gazyva in lupus nephritis, boosting the Swiss drugmaker’s efforts to recycle the 2013-approved lymphoma medicine for new indications.

Adaptive Biotechnologies announced a worldwide collaboration and license agreement with Genentech – a member of the Roche Group – to develop, manufacture and commercialize novel neoantigen directed T-cell therapies for the treatment of a broad range of cancers.