Business and People News — 8-22

In the new EXPrESSIVE clinical trial program, Merck will evaluate MK-8527, a once-monthly, oral PrEP therapy, in populations at high risk of HIV-1 infection, including adolescent girls and women in sub-Saharan Africa.

In this episode of the Applied Clinical Trials Podcast, David Nickerson, head of clinical quality management at EMD Serono; and Arlene Lee, director of product management, data quality & risk management solutions at Medidata, discuss the newest ICH E6(R3) GCP guidelines as well as how TransCelerate and ACRO have partnered to help stakeholders better acclimate to these guidelines.

In the BaxHTN Phase III study, AstraZeneca’s baxdrostat demonstrated statistically significant and clinically meaningful reductions in systolic blood pressure in patients with uncontrolled or treatment-resistant hypertension.

By publishing more than 200 complete response letters, the FDA is offering new visibility into the issues that most often delay drug approvals, including safety concerns, trial design flaws, and manufacturing gaps.

The FDA has granted orphan status to Arcus Biosciences’ CD73 inhibitor quemliclustat for metastatic pancreatic cancer, as the global PRISM-1 Phase III trial nears full enrollment following promising survival data from ARC-8.