Novartis’ Sandoz business unit saw a strong financial performance in the first quarter of 2022, with overall sales growth of 8 percent, mostly outside of the United States. Sales for the generics and biosimilar unit benefited from what the company called a normalization of the impacts of COVID-19.
Amneal Pharmaceuticals received the green light from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for bevacizumab-maly, a biosimilar to Roche/Genentech’s Avastin. The biosimilar approval marks the second for Amneal during 2022.
On Thursday, members of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate introduced legislation that targets efforts that have limited competition, which keeps the price of prescription drugs high.
Biosimilar development continues to advance for the U.S. market in anticipation of becoming an alternative to a brand drug with similar safety and efficacy.
Pharma giant AbbVie and Iceland-based Alvotech settled a case filed with the International Trade Commission. The dispute centered around Alvotech’s adalimumab biosimilar drug, which AbbVie posited had been developed through theft of trade secrets of the company’s Humira product.
Biocon Biologics acquired partner Viatris’ biosimilars assets in a transaction that is part of an effort to create a global, vertically integrated biosimilars leader.
Viatris, the drugmaker formerly known as Mylan, agreed to pay $264 million to resolve a class action lawsuit alleging the company engaged in a scheme to delay generic competition to its EpiPen allergy treatment.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration accepted for review Pfizer Inc.’s Prior Approval Supplement to the Biologics License Application for ABRILADA (adalimumab-afzb) as an interchangeable biosimilar to Humira (adalimumab).
AbbVie reported the company’s fourth-quarter 2021 and full-year financial results on Feb. 2, with worldwide net reviews up 7.4% to $14.89 billion for the quarter. Total revenues for 2021 were $56 billion. The company’s anchor product remains Humira, which will begin to lose exclusivity in 2023.
Biogen is selling the company’s nearly 50 percent stake in South Korea-based Samsung Bioepis for $2.3 billion.
