Top news
* Roche Holding AG's Tecentriq in combination with Celgene Corp.'s chemotherapy drug Abraxane was approved by the European Commission to treat certain patients with triple-negative breast cancer — an aggressive form of the disease.
* The World Health Organization said global measles cases saw a three-fold increase between January and July, compared to the same period in 2018, Reuters reported. Every region in the world, barring the Americas, is seeing a rising number of cases of the vaccine-preventable disease, the report said.
* The WHO stressed the need for social media platforms to provide evidence-based information about vaccines to curb misinformation about vaccinations to users. The agency commended the role of social media company Pinterest Inc. for showing results from leading public health groups on vaccine-related searches.
* Fitch Ratings said makers and distributors of opioids may seek to end litigation related to their alleged roles in the U.S. opioid crisis with a master settlement agreement similar to the one big tobacco companies signed about two decades ago.
* Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. said a U.S. court invalidated asserted patent claims by Amgen Inc. regarding a certain class of cholesterol drugs. Amgen filed a lawsuit in October 2014 to stop the sale of Sanofi and Regeneron's Praluent, claiming that the drug infringed on two of its patents related to the PCSK9 protein.
* The U.S. will provide thousands of doses of HIV medicines to treat Venezuelan migrants in Colombia, who have fled the South American country amid shortages of food and medicine, Reuters reported.
* In this week's edition of First In Human — where S&P Global Market Intelligence reports on early-stage clinical development — we take a look at AbbVie Inc.'s push for calculated risk-taking in early-stage research, the difference in treatment results between mice and humans, and gene editing trials.
Drug and product pipeline
* AstraZeneca PLC intends to explore approval pathways for its drug anifrolumab after the medicine lowered symptoms of lupus in certain patients in a phase 3 trial. The medicine had previously failed a late-stage study in patients with lupus — an autoimmune disease that occurs when the body's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs.
* The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned on Aug. 28 that certain hepatitis C treatments from AbbVie Inc., Merck & Co. Inc. and Gilead Sciences Inc. led to rare cases of worsening liver function and liver failure in patients with the disease.
* The FDA said the risk of cancer from taking valsartan medications — which have been the subject of recent global recalls — did not outweigh the benefits in treating high blood pressure and heart disease. The agency said cancer risk to patients taking any of the multiple generic forms of valsartan and other related drugs is likely much lower than estimated.
Operational activity
* Sino Biopharmaceutical Ltd.'s six-month underlying profit attributable to owners of the parent was 13.30 Chinese fen per share, an increase of 17.8% from 11.29 fen per share in the year-earlier period.
* Celgene is collaborating with privately owned Immatics biotechnologies GmbH to develop novel adoptive cell therapies for multiple cancers in a deal worth $75 million up-front.
The day ahead
Early morning futures indicators pointed to a higher opening for the U.S. market.
In Asia, the Hang Seng rose 0.34% to 25,703.50, and the Nikkei 225 fell 0.09% to 20,460.93.
In Europe, around midday, the FTSE 100 was up 1.07% to 7,190.97, and the Euronext 100 rose 1.47% to 1,057.66.
Click here to read about today's financial markets, setting out the factors driving stocks, bonds and currencies around the world ahead of the New York open.
The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 6:30 a.m. ET. Some external links may require a subscription. Links are current as of publication time, and we are not responsible if those links are unavailable later.
