• 19 Sep 2023
• Admin
• News Article

RedHill Announces FDA sNDA Approval for Talicia®

FDA approves supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for Talicia, changing dosing to a simplified three times daily (TID) regimen, which may support increased patient adherence and treatment outcomes

Talicia is the leading branded first-line therapy prescribed by U.S. gastroenterologists^[1] for eradication of H. pylori - a bacterial infection that affects approximately 35% of the U.S. adult population^[2]

^{RedHill Biopharma Ltd. a specialty biopharmaceutical company, announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) approval of its supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for Talicia[3], allowing a change to a more flexible three times daily (TID), taken at least 4 hours apart with food, dosing regimen for H. pylori eradication. This differs from the previously approved dosing regimen (Q8H), which required dosing every eight hours with food, by enabling patients to follow a convenient "breakfast, lunch and dinner" dosing routine, which may support increased patient adherence and optimize the potential for successful H. pylori eradication. "H. pylori treatment can be challenging for patients as most regimens require different pills to be taken multiple times per day. However, it is clear that simplified regimens promote improved patient adherence and should be a key factor when considering choice of H. pylori eradication therapy," said Colin W. Howden, MD, Professor Emeritus, University of Tennessee College of Medicine. "This new dosing regimen further supports the value of Talicia as an empirically prescribed first-line therapy for H. pylori eradication. Talicia's favorable efficacy, tolerability, and resistance profile, as well as being the only all-in-one formulation available, provides potential advantages over clarithromycin-based regimens for most patients."}

"Talicia is unique in that it is the only FDA-approved rifabutin-based therapy for the eradication of H. pylori. Both its components and formulation are optimized to provide patients with the necessary medications for successful H. pylori eradication," said Dr. June Almenoff, MD, Ph.D., RedHill's Chief Medical Officer. "RedHill is committed to advancing GI and infectious disease management through patient-focused innovation. Through our successful collaboration with Certara, utilizing their Simcyp™ Simulator for physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling, we have demonstrated therapeutic equivalence between TID and Q8H dosing, enabling us to provide what we believe is a more flexible Talicia regimen that we believe will be beneficial for the patient experience."

About H. pylori infection     
H. pylori is a bacterial infection that affects approximately 35% of the U.S. population, with an estimated two million patients treated annually^[4]. Worldwide, more than 50% of the population has H. pylori infection, which is classified by the WHO as a Group 1 carcinogen. It remains the strongest known risk factor for gastric cancer^[5] and a major risk factor for peptic ulcer disease^[6] and gastric mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma^[7]. More than 27,000 Americans are diagnosed with gastric cancer annually^[8]. Eradication of H. pylori is becoming increasingly difficult, with current therapies failing in approximately 25-40% of patients who remain H. pylori-positive due to high resistance of H. pylori to antibiotics – especially clarithromycin – which is still commonly used in standard combination therapies2.

About Talicia
Talicia is a novel, fixed-dose, all-in-one oral capsule combination of two antibiotics (amoxicillin and rifabutin) and a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) (omeprazole), approved by the U.S. FDA for the treatment of H. pylori infection in adults.

Talicia is the only low-dose rifabutin-based therapy approved for the treatment of H. pylori infection and is designed to address H. pylori's high resistance to other antibiotics. The high rates of H. pylori resistance to clarithromycin have led to significant rates of treatment failure with clarithromycin-based therapies and are a strong public health concern, as highlighted by the ACG, FDA and the World Health Organization (WHO) in recent years.

In the pivotal Phase 3 study, Talicia demonstrated 84% eradication of H. pylori infection in the intent-to-treat (ITT) group vs. 58% in the active comparator arm (p<0.0001). Minimal to zero resistance to rifabutin, a key component of Talicia, was detected in RedHill's pivotal Phase 3 study. Further, in an analysis of data from this study, it was observed that subjects who were confirmed adherent^[9] to their therapy had response rates of 90.3% in the Talicia arm vs. 64.7% in the active comparator arm^[10]. To reduce the development of drug-resistant bacteria and maintain the effectiveness of Talicia and other antibacterial drugs, Talicia should be used only to treat or prevent infections that are proven or strongly suspected to be caused by bacteria.  

Talicia is eligible for a total of eight years of U.S. market exclusivity under its Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) designation and is also covered by U.S. patents which extend patent protection until 2034 with additional patents and applications pending and granted in various territories worldwide.