Lynne Peterson is the Senior Writer for Trends-in-Medicine.

Here is the medical news to watch for April 12-18, 2021.

Cardiology

  • A joint virtual meeting of the European Society of Hypertension and the International Society of Hypertension (ESH-ISH) is continuing through April 14. There will be talks on atrial fibrillation, biomarkers, measuring blood pressure, co-morbidities, kidney disease, high altitudes, large arteries, and much more. The relationship of Covid-19 to hypertension, ACE2 inhibitors, RAAS inhibition, and cardiovascular disease will also be featured.
  • The European Society of Cardiology’s virtual Preventive Cardiology meeting will take place April 15-17. Topics will include primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention, sports cardiology, primary care, rehabilitation, and more.
  • The Cardiovascular Research Technologies (CRT) virtual meeting will take place only on Saturday, April 17, this week. In addition to a focus on structural heart disease, there will be a session on the best innovations of CRT 2021.

Endocrinology: The FDA’s Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee will meet virtually on April 15 to consider a gene therapy for brittle Type 1 diabetes, CellTrans’ donislecel (purified allogeneic deceased donor pancreas derived Islets of Langerhans).

Interventional radiology: The Venous Symposium will take place virtually April 15-17, offering a comprehensive, practical, and interactive review of everything venous – from diagnostic protocols to compression, superficial vein reflux, aesthetic vein problems, pelvic vein disorders, and much more.

Neurology: The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) virtual meeting begins on April 17. Interesting sessions on the first day include discussion of the neurology of video games, an overview of multiple sclerosis therapies, an update in movement disorders, headache, and Covid-19. On Sunday, there will be an update on migraine and sessions on managing autonomic disorders, neurologic disease prevention with food, frontotemporal dementias, epilepsy update, neuromodulation in movement disorders, and sleep. Among the data to watch:

  • The results of the phase III ULTIMATE-I and -II trials of an anti-CD20 [TG Therapeutics’ ublituximab (TG-1101)] in multiple sclerosis.
  • The results of the phase III ASPEN-1/ASPEN-OLS trials of a toxin (Revance Therapeutics’ daxibotulinumtoxinA) in cervical dystonia.

Oncology: The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) science session will be continuing through April 15. Among the data to watch not in last week’s Forecast: The results of the phase III RATIONALE-303 trial of a new PD-1 inhibitor (BeiGene and Novartis’ tislelizumab) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Ophthalmology: The Wet AMD & DME Drug Development virtual meeting will take place April 13-15. Researchers from academia and industry will describe therapies in development to treat wet and dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, and other retinal diseases. Among the interesting talks will be sessions on gene therapy, ways to increase treatment durability, ways to reduce the treatment burden, new therapeutics, clinical biomarkers, and more.

Pain: The FDA is expected to make a decision by April 12 on IV tramadol (Fortress Biotech/Avenue Therapeutics) for use to relieve acute pain after abdominoplasty in a medically-supervised healthcare setting. The FDA rejected the new drug application on October 12, 2020, over safety concerns, but the company resubmitted its application with proposed revised labeling aimed at resolving those concerns.

Regulatory: The FDA and the Drug Information Association (DIA) will jointly host the Biostatistics Industry and Regulator Forum three-day virtual meeting April 14-16. The discussion will focus on statistical issues associated with the development and review of therapeutic drugs and biologics – a topic that should appeal to statisticians, and clinical trialists who develop new drugs and biologics.

Lynne Peterson, Contributing Writer, Senior Writer for Trends-in-Medicine

Cat ID: 204

Topic ID: 74,204,393,204,914,12,187,935,131,36,725,240,96,167,203

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