Novartis and Janssen take top prizes at this year's UK Prix Galien

Swiss drug major Novartis (NOVN: VX) and US health care giant Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE: JNJ) Europe-based subsidiary Janssen have won the two top awards at the UK Prix Galien awards. The prize was established to recognize the pharma industry’s outstanding achievement in the evolution of medicines.

Novartis took home the innovative product award for its breakthrough meningitis vaccine Bexsero (multicomponent meningococcal Group B vaccine [recombinant, adsorbed]), while Janssen won orphan drug award for tuberculosis medication Sirturo (bedaquiline). Sirturo is the first new treatment in this indication for four decades.

Michael Rawlins, chairman of the judging panel, said of Bexsero that it is “fantastic that the pioneering research at Novartis has led to the use of genomic techniques in creating a broadly protective vaccine.” On Janssen’s therapy, he said that it “emerged as a clear winner [and] the panel was impressed with its novel mechanism of action.”