Eli Lilly announced that the drug Jaypirca received a second approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday, December 1, 2023. The drug is used to treat a form of blood cancer.
In its announcement, the company said the drug received new approval to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a type of cancer in which too many of certain white blood cells are produced by bone marrow.
Earlier this month, the FDA granted accelerated approval to Jaypirca to treat mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), a rare type of blood cancer that starts in white blood cells and spreads to other parts of the body.
According to the National Institutes of Health, MCL is a more dangerous type of cancer than CLL. At least two lines of therapy must be used before the drug can be used to treat adults with CLL.
In another development last month, US and UK regulators both gave the green light to Eli Lilly’s (LLY.N) weight loss treatment called Zepbound on Wednesday, paving the way to Novo Nordisk’s (NOVOb.CO) powerful new Wegovy rival to combat record obesity rates.
These two drugs are the most effective weight loss treatments approved to date and will compete in a global market estimated to be worth $100 billion by the end of the decade.
