China's NMPA keeping faith, approving Cosentyx and Keytruda

China’s state council last August announced reform goals, which included speeding up the approval process for imported drugs, and seeking to include more oncology drugs in the national reimbursement drug list.

In this respect, the country’s medicines regulator, the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), is doing its bit, yesterday granting marketing approval for two significant new drugs from pharma giants: Novartis’ (NOVN: VX) Cosentyx (secukinumab); and Merck & Co’s (NYSE: MRK) Keytruda (pembrolizumab)

Cosentyxis the first-in-class interleukin-17A (IL-17A) inhibitor for moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis in adult patients who are candidates for systemic therapy or phototherapy.