Lannett’s development of biosimilar Lantus advances with FDA feedback

Lannett recently received good news from the Food and Drug Administration regarding the development of its biosimilar insulin glargine, a product the company is co-developing with its strategic alliance partners within the HEC Group of companies.  

Lannett’s product is a generic of Sanofi’s Lantus.

At a Biosimilar Biological Product Development Type 2 meeting in June 2020, representatives from Lannett spoke with and received guidance from the FDA on the clinical advancement program of its biosimilar insulin glargine partnered product candidate. At that meeting, FDA requested Lannett submit a protocol for the pivotal trial for review before Lannett submitted an INDA.

In November 2020, the company responded to that request and provided the proposed protocol and SAP. The FDA recently provided its feedback and comments to the company's proposal and the company has now incorporated the feedback into the design of the pivotal trial, including the type and size of the trial, as well as primary and secondary endpoints, to meet the FDA's requirements.

Lannett said it was comfortable with the feedback, which is aligned with ongoing development work. Testing related to the production of a commercially scaled batch is underway, so the company believes it remains on track to submit an IND to the FDA later this calendar year. Subsequent to filing an acceptable IND, the company anticipates commencing the pivotal trial early in 2022, filing the BLA later in 2022 and launching the product in 2023.

Lannett noted that the proposed pivotal trial, albeit with a larger number of proposed participants, is similar to the previously completed first human volunteer pilot study, which indicated that the Lannett/HEC insulin glargine product was biosimilar to U.S approved Lantus in terms of meeting all pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics safety endpoints in the study.