The June meeting of the European Medicines Agency's human medicines committee brought mixed fortunes for companies. 10 new products were recommended for pan-EU approval, two drugs were rejected, while the conditional approval of one drug is set to be revoked. PTC Therapeutics again faced disappointment regarding its Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug Translarna, but has vowed to fight back.

Regeneron, whose blood cancer treatment odronextamab was recently turned down by the US regulator but not for reasons relating to efficacy or safety, could soon learn whether its product will be among the drugs to get the thumbs up from the CHMP, the European Medicines Agency’s human medicines committee.

The San Diego biotech is also de-emphasizing three ongoing targeted cancer therapy candidates and giving itself the flexibility to focus on RAS- or KRAS-targeting approaches.

The ranks of B7-H3-targeting antibody-drug conjugates under development in China have seen their first dropout, although elsewhere there are two FGFR2b-directed ADCs with first-in-class potential on the horizon. Meanwhile, there have been other discontinuations of KRAS G12C inhibitors and anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapies in the country, while new players have surfaced in the areas of mRNA cancer vaccines and amyloid-beta-targeting antibodies for Alzheimer’s disease.