he first new treatment for lupus in a half-century won U.S. approval on Wednesday, a milestone for patients with the disabling disease and a potential blockbuster for tiny biotech company Human Genome Sciences Inc (HGSI.O).
Health officials cleared Benlysta for certain patients with active lupus who are receiving standard therapy. The disease causes the immune system to attack joints and organs and has proved tough to study and treat.
I have been long Human Genome for about 6 months now and hopefully this news will be good for the stock. One bad thing though is that it doesn't work on black people for whatever reason:
In clinical trials, black patients "did not appear to respond to treatment," the FDA said. To address that concern, the company will run another study to further examine safety and effectiveness in black patients, the agency said.
This is pretty weird so I'm glad HGSI is going to run another study to see why it doesn't work. They should be easily able to afford this study because Benlysta is supposed to be hauling in $3 billion a year by 2015. The money doesn't matter though because Lupus is bad news and I'm glad that people are finally going to get to take something new to combat it.
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