Business in Brief
Aflibercept gets approved by NICE, STAAR’s Visian ICL with CentraFLOW gets approved in Japan, and rises and falls in Allergan and Alcon’s revenues.
- Bayer/ Regeneron’s aflibercept has been approved by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a treatment option for visual impairment due to macular edema secondary to central retinal vein occlusion. This follows the recent acceptance of the FDA to perform a standard review of aflibercept for a supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for the same indication.
- STAAR Surgical announced that its Visian Implantable Collamer Lens with CentraFLOW technology has been approved by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. This follows news that STAAR’s total revenue for 2013 grew by 13 percent compared with 2012’s figure.
- Alcon’s operating income for in 2013 fell by 16 percent to $1.2 billion, over its income in 2012, despite a rise in sales. The fall in income was ascribed to integration and restructuring costs.
- Allergan had a good fourth quarter of 2013, reporting $1.66 billion in total product net sales in that period – a 14.6 percent increase compared with the corresponding quarter in 2012.
- TRACON Pharmaceuticals and Santen Pharmaceutical have entered into an exclusive agreement for the development and global commercialization of TRACON’s range of antibodies to endoglin (a endothelial cell receptor that essential to angiogenesis) in opthalmology. Santen is making a $10 million upfront payment, and will find all future global development and commercialization costs, and pay TRACON certain milestone and tiered royalty payments.
I spent seven years as a medical writer, writing primary and review manuscripts, congress presentations and marketing materials for numerous – and mostly German – pharmaceutical companies. Prior to my adventures in medical communications, I was a Wellcome Trust PhD student at the University of Edinburgh.
