The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday cleared the first oral therapy for a rare and debilitating skin condition.
Called brepocitinib and to be sold as Lisraya, the drug was originally discovered by Pfizer and licensed to Priovant Therapeutics, a subsidiary of hub-and-spoke biotechnology company Roivant Sciences. It’s been cleared for use treating dermatomyositis, a condition that causes muscle weakness and skin lesions. A 30-day supply will have a list price of $35,000, executives revealed on a Friday conference call.
In a July interview with BioPharma Dive, Roivant CEO Matt Gline described the success biotechs like BridgeBio Pharma, Argenx and Insmed have had marketing their own drugs as a blueprint for Priovant. “We don't have to be an innovator commercially, we just have to learn from what other people have done and reproduce it,” Gline said at the time.
Taken once daily, Lisraya targets TYK2 and JAK1, two members of the family of “Janus kinase” or “JAK” proteins. Multiple drugs that block JAK proteins have been approved to treat autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and eczema and some, like AbbVie’s Rinvoq, have become big sellers. But they’ve also been associated with serious safety issues.
