Novartis And Vertex Win Key FDA Approvals

Two highly anticipated new drugs have gotten FDA’s green light. The agency approved Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ Orkambi to treat people whose cystic fibrosis is driven by a mutation in the ΔF508 gene. And it okayed Novartis’s heart failure pill Entresto, which combines the active ingredient in the older heart drug Diovan with the neprilysin inhibitor sacubitril. Both new drugs are key to their marketers’ future. Vertex has priced Orkambi at $259,000 per year and expects peak annual sales of more than $4 billion. Novartis, which sees Entresto’s sales passing $5 billion, set an initial price of roughly $4,500 per year. But the firm says it may charge insurers more if the drug keeps heart failure patients out of the hospital.