Regeneron left the American Society for Hematology meeting in San Diego this week with a pair of trial aces, notching a head-to-head win against a rare disease blockbuster and a potential best-in-class performance in the crowded lymphoma market.

Nearly five years after an FDA approval for Soliris in neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD), AstraZeneca’s follow-on C5 drug Ultomiris has entered the rare neurological disease, as well.

AstraZeneca has been successful at rolling out its long-acting complement C5 inhibitor Ultomiris in the uses approved for its predecessor Soliris – until now, that is.

Astrazeneca has the dominant complement inhibitor franchise via the acquisition of Alexion and its intravenous therapies Soliris and Ultomiris. But that position could soon come under fire from Novartis’s oral contender iptacopan.

Astra has oral projects of its own, although these are either way behind or focused on relatively small niches in paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria (PNH), their first indication. But Anita Hill, vice-president of global medical affairs at the Alexion division, believes that there is a good reason not to write off Soliris and Ultomiris just yet.

For years, Alexion has been the only name in the game for a blood disease called paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH). Now, a number of Big Pharmas want in, vying to show their candidates can go head-to-head with the AstraZeneca unit's market-leading therapies Ultomiris and Soliris.

Novartis is coming for the jewels of AstraZeneca’s $39 billion takeover of Alexion. In a phase 3 trial, the Swiss drugmaker’s iptacopan beat the incumbent rare disease drugs Soliris and Ultomiris, advancing its plan (PDF) to turn the oral challenger into a $3 billion-a-year blockbuster.

AstraZeneca PLC on Monday said it won two recommendations for approval in the EU and one priority review in the US.

AstraZeneca's and Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd's breast cancer drug Enhertu won strategic priority review in the US for patients with some forms of breast cancer. "Enhertu is a specifically engineered HER2-directed antibody drug conjugate," AstraZeneca, a Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company, explained. HER2 stands for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, a protein that promotes the growth of cancer cells.

Thursday, Ultomiris continued its rapid ascent with an FDA approval to treat generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG), an autoimmune neuromuscular disorder that causes severe weakness and loss of muscle function.

AstraZeneca and Roche recently decided to end a patent infringement fight around Ultomiris. Now, we know the price of the deal.

AstraZeneca’s Alexion will pay $775 million to Roche’s Chugai Pharmaceutical to resolve all patent disputes related to the C5 inhibitor, the two companies said Thursday.