With the Chinese Coronavirus dominating the news this week, headlines were a diverse affair: Novartis has backed out of a generic program copying Advair, with the company citing that they could no longer see a way to launch in the next few years. In other nes, an AI-developed drug has reached human trials for the first time ever in what promises to be an interesting first in drug discovery, and almost 50 drugs were found to have additional applicability in cancer, thanks to a large-scale study by MIT and Harvard.

NOVARTIS BACKS AWAY FROM $442 MILLION ADVAIR COPY – Novartis is discontinuing its Advair copy after the FDA rejected it in 2018 and new data showed there was no longer a “pathway to launch in the next 18 months”. The reversal is costing Novartis $442 million in write-offs of development work and other investments.

AI-DESIGNED DRUG TO ENTER HUMAN TRIALS FOR FIRST TIME – DSP-1181, a drug to combat OCD, has been discovered by a joint effort between Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma and Exscientia’s AI algorithms. DSP-1181 is now set to enter human trials in a major medicinal milestone, the first time an AI-discovered drug has done so. Exscientia’s AI analysed patient genetic data to find molecules useful to new medicine in only twelve months, while most development cycles take more than five years.

NEARLY 50 NON-ONCOLOGY DRUGS FOUND TO KILL CANCER CELLS – Research by the MIT Broad Institute and Harvard has discovered that, of 4,518 drug compounds, almost 50 work well when tested on 578 cancer cell lines, and have unforeseen utility against cancer. The drugs currently target, among other things, inflammation, alcoholism, and arthritis in dogs.

In other news: 

Manufacturing
The most and least expensive countries to run a pharma plant

That’s all for now. See you next week!

Joshua Neil, Editor
Proventa International