Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated can now offer Symdeko for treating the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis (CF) for more certain patients. The company announced Tuesday that FDA has approved it for people older than 11 who have two copies of the F508del mutation in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene or who have at least one mutation that is responsive to tezacaftor/ivacaftor.
Symdeko is Vertex’s third medicine approved to treat the underlying cause of CF. Vertex is ready to launch Symdeko and will begin shipping it to pharmacies in the United States this week.
“The approval of Symdeko, our third disease-modifying CF medicine, offers many patients an important new treatment option,” said Jeffrey Leiden, Vertex’s Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. “This approval is an important milestone in our journey to treat every person with CF, and we remain committed to urgently advancing our efforts to develop new medicines that treat the underlying cause of CF for the many people still waiting.”
“We’ve already seen the significant impact that disease-modifying medicines can have on patients and are incredibly pleased that there is now a third treatment option that enables more patients to benefit from CFTR modulation,” said Patrick Flume, M.D., Director of the Medical University of South Carolina Cystic Fibrosis Center and Principal Investigator for the EXTEND study. “In particular, Symdeko is an important treatment option for patients who either never started or discontinued Orkambi, and it also provides increased benefit over Kalydeco alone for patients with residual function mutations.”