Pharmaceutical companies including Novartis and Roche have teamed up with global cancer organizations in an alliance aimed at getting more oncology medications to poorer countries.
Greece’s Health Minister Thanos Plevris announced plans to sue Novartis over what he alleges are illegal practices. The scandal has been playing out for several years, with Novartis alleged to have paid Greek public officials and health care providers to increase prescriptions for the company’s drugs and maintain higher prices.
Reuters HealthNovartis temporarily suspended the production of the company’s Lutathera and Pluvicto cancer therapies at facilities in Italy and New Jersey after potential quality issues were discovered in their manufacturing.
Novartis announced positive news for patients with metastatic breast cancer. New data showed Kisqali (ribociclib), in combination with the chemotherapy drug fulvestrant, added nearly 16 months of survival benefit to the lives of patients compared to fulvestrant alone.
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.
The Precision Cancer Consortium (PCC) announced its formation as a new collaboration of pharmaceutical companies with a shared vision of enabling access to comprehensive testing for all cancer patients globally.
Pharmaceutical giant Novartis announced a global restructuring that will reportedly include cutting thousands of jobs.
As Novartis explores the possible sell-off of its Sandoz business, the company is undergoing a significant transformation that it says will save about $1 billion in operations costs by 2024.
A federal judge in Delaware tossed out a lawsuit by Roche company Genentech accusing Novartis’ Sandoz division of patent infringement. In this case, the patent was related to Genentech’s Esbriet (pirfenidone), which is used to treat idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Novartis’ proposed drug for adults diagnosed with a certain type of advanced prostate cancer was given the green light for commercialization.