Horizon receives European go-ahead for Ravicti
pharmafile | December 2, 2015 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | Horizon Pharma, Ravicti, horizon, orphan drug, rare disease, urea cycle disorders
The European Commission has approved Ravicti for rare urea cycle disorders.
Ravicti, (glycerol phenylbutyrate), is an oral liquid developed by Horizon Pharma an adjunctive therapy for the chronic management of adults and children two months of age and older with six subtypes of urea cycle disorders (UCDs).
This decision follows the Positive Opinion previously adopted on September 24, 2015 by the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP). The approval authorises Horizon to market Ravicti in all 28 Member States of the European Union (EU). The centralised marketing authorisation will form the basis for recognition by the Member States of the European Economic Area (EEA), namely Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, for the product to be placed on the market.
Timothy Walbert, chairman, president and chief executive of Horizon Pharma, says: “The approval of Ravicti in the European Union and the European Economic Area represents a significant milestone for Horizon Pharma as we expand our business globally. With this approval, we will now focus on developing country-by-country plans to make Ravicti available to people with urea cycle disorders throughout Europe.”
As Ravicti is a designated orphan medicinal product containing a new active substance, it will benefit from a period of 10 years of market protection, with a possibility of extension to 11 years and a period of 10 years of orphan market exclusivity concurrently applied to each of the approved six sub-types of the UCDs.
UCDs are metabolic diseases that affect a specific enzyme or transporter of the urea cycle, causing heightened levels of ammonia in the blood stream. Symptoms of the disorder can begin at any age, with more severe defects beginning early in life. UCD patients may experience episodes, called hyperammonemic crises, when ammonia levels in the blood become excessively high, which can result in irreversible brain damage, coma or death.
Yasmita Kumar
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