The FDA has approved 30 new drugs this year, slightly above the average annual number, and five approvals have been delayed due to COVID-19, OptumRx said in the report.
The three drugs to watch:
- Tecartus (Kite Pharma) — A cancer therapy approved July 24 designed to treat adult patients with a rare and aggressive form of lymphoma. It is the first CAR-T therapy for a rare and aggressive cancer called mantle cell lymphoma. It’s competing against five other FDA-approved drugs for the same indication, but Tecartus was effective in patients who had already failed other treatments.
- Kesimpta (Novartis) — A drug approved Aug. 20 designed to treat the most common form of relapsing multiple sclerosis. It’s competing with many other multiple sclerosis drugs, but it is a self-administered injection given once per month, which may offer it an advantage, OptumRx said. It’s priced at $83,000 per year, with competing drugs priced between $65,000 and $85,000 per year.
- Monjuvi (MorphoSys) — A new treatment option for patients with the most common type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Monjuvi was approved July 31. It targets the same cancer protein as existing CAR-T therapies, but is not a CAR-T drug, so it may offer an alternative to patients not eligible for CAR-T therapy.
Editor’s note: This article was updated Sept. 23 at 6:13 p.m. to reflect corrections to Kesimpta’s price and dose frequency.
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