Look back at pharma news in week to June 8

By Barbara Obstoj-Cardwell

With the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology now well behind us, the consensus view is that US pharma giant Merck & Co stole the show with impressive data on its Keytruda in lung cancer. On a negative note, last week saw disappointing clinical trial results from Switzerland’s Roche, resulting in the company giving up on the development of its spinal muscular atrophy drug olesoxime. On the deal-making front, Axovant Sciences’ collaboration with the UK’s Oxford BioMedica for a Parkinson’s disease candidate, that could earn the latter as much as $824 million, attracted attention, and Roche’s deal with Microbiotica has rekindled interest in the microbiome space. Elsewhere, US Food and Drug Administration approval of Fulphila, Mylan’s biosimilar of Amgen’s Neulasta, was a feature.

Merck steals the show at ASCO 2018 with impressive front-line lung cancer data