Sandoz announced today that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has decided not to approve its biosimilar version of the oncology biosimilar rituximab. The content of the complete response letter was not revealed by Sandoz.
This marks the second rituximab biosimilar rejected by the FDA. Celltrion and Teva’s Truxima™ was also rejected in early April. Both Sandoz’s biosimilar (Rixathon™) and Truxima™ are marketed in Europe and in other parts of the globe. In Europe, Rixathon was approved in June 2017, and Truxima received marketing authorization in February of that year.
Although the European approval for Rixathon was for all of Rituxan/MabThera’s oncology and autoimmune indications, Sandoz was seeking oncology indications only in the US with its rituximab biosimilar.
Sandoz registered early success with filgrastim (Zarxio®) and etanercept (Erelzi®), but was handed a set back from FDA on its biosimilar pegfilgrastim. We’ll report any updates we receive on Sandoz’s progress in resolving the issues in question with rituximab.
Next up is the Allergan/Amgen biosimilar of trastuzumab, which has an FDA PDUFA date of May 28.
