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The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has authorised a new drug today (1 November) to treat severe alopecia areata. Litfulo is the new hard capsule medicine with a recommended dosage of just 50 mg per day. It contains an active ingredient, ritlecitinib, an enzyme inhibitor treatment for patients over 12 years. Ritlecitinib works by reducing the activity of enzymes in the body called JAK3 and TEC kinases that cause hair follicle inflammation. This reduction in inflammation leads to hair regrowth in patients with alopecia areata. Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease, where the body's own immune system attacks hair follicles leading to hair loss on the scalp and other parts of the body.

Sun Pharma has announced that it will acquire all outstanding shares of Concert Pharmaceuticals through a tender offer for an upfront payment of $8.00 per share of common stock in cash, or $576 million in equity value. The upfront payment of $8.00 per share of common stock in cash represents a premium of approximately 33% to Concert's 30-day volume weighted average price as of January 18, 2023, the last trading day prior to today's announcement. Concert is a late-stage biotechnology company pioneering the use of deuterium in medicinal chemistry. Concert has an extensive patent portfolio, including its lead product candidate deuruxolitinib - an oral inhibitor of Janus kinases JAK1 and JAK2 for the treatment of Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune dermatological disease - which is in late-stage development. It has completed the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of deuruxolitinib in adult patients with moderate to severe Alopecia Areata in its THRIVE-AA Phase 3 clinical program and two open label, long-term extension studies are ongoing in North America and Europe. Sun Pharma's immediate focus would be to follow Concert's plan to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the first half of 2023.