Scientists behind Big Pharma drugs gonged

Three scientists behind Roche and Chugai Pharmaceuticals’ haemophilia A drug Hemlibra have been honoured for their work at the 2026 Lasker Foundation Awards.

Marketed by Roche in Australia, Hemlibra was approved by the TGA in 2018 and has been funded under the National Blood Agreement since 2020 for certain patients.

Chugai Pharmaceutical scientists, Takehisa Kitazawa and Tomoyuki Igawa along with Kunihiro Hattori, a former employee of the company, have received the Clinical Medical Research award for inventing the bispecific antibody that joins blood clotting Factors IX and X, restoring deficient VIII activity in haemophilia A, thus preventing the severe bleeding that characterises the genetic disorder.