Look back at pharma news in week to Feb 9

News last week on the research front focussed on important new data from Bristol-Myers Squibb on Opdivo plus Yervoy in lung cancer and from Array BioPharma and Pierre Fabre on their encorafenib and binimetinib combination in melanoma. A negative regulatory decision for Sandoz’ biosimilar suggests a reprieve for GlaxoSmithKline’s Advair. Financial results from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals prompted comment on the outlook for its ophthalmic drug Eylea, and there was a significant licensing deal between Johnson & Johnson and Theravance concerning gastro-intestinal candidate TD-1473.

B-MS makes enormous advance in first-line lung cancer

Things have gone really well for Bristol-Myers Squibb as it has reported an improvement in progression-free survival in patients with a common form of lung cancer, according to Terry Chrisomalis writing on the Seeking Alpha blog. The Phase III study, known as CHECKMATE-227, recruited patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This is for patients in the first-line setting, and who had tumor mutation burden regardless of PD-L1 expression.