In the company’s first-quarter earnings call Tuesday, J&J CEO Joaquin Duato said there’s a better way to encourage drug manufacturing in the U.S. than President Donald Trump’s threatened pharma tariffs.
Merck has not disclosed which of its peptide therapies it plans to develop oral formulations for.
J&J opened Q1 2025 pharma earnings Tuesday, reporting sales of $21.9 billion and diluted earnings per share of $4.54. The medicines unit provided $13.9 billion while the medtech unit generated the remaining $8 billion.
According to analysts at BMO Capital Markets, non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy would have meant a $1.3 billion label expansion opportunity for Camzyos.
At the heart of the licensing deal is CUE-501, a bispecific molecule that can selectively deplete B cells to address autoimmune and inflammatory conditions.
Trump could use the findings of the probe to impose certain trade restrictions on pharma products, including tariffs.
FEATURED STORIES
With the modality now in early clinical trials, experts say more efficiency, broader editing capabilities and delivery breakthroughs are needed to propel RNA editing to the next stage.
Morale is low at the FDA, which was hit with layoffs this week following RFK Jr.’s confirmation. Biopharma leaders and agency insiders fear further workforce cuts could delay new medicines.
2023 marked the most bankruptcies in biopharma in more than a decade, with 14 companies filing for Chapter 11 protection. The number remained high in 2024.
FROM BIOSPACE INSIGHTS
In a year when eradicated diseases are on the uptick in America, how will American children survive RFK Jr.’s vaccine scrutiny and inconsistency? Two experts call on pharma and regulatory bodies to rebuild trust.
LATEST PODCASTS
BioSpace’s Lori Ellis discusses the risks and challenges of cell and gene therapy combination products with DIA speakers James Wabby, AbbVie and Rob Schulz, Suttons Creek, Inc.
Mass layoffs represent a step for Bayer toward reducing managerial layers, while clinical results released in the last week could influence the parallel races between Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly in the GLP-1 and insulin spaces.
Bayer joined BMS in announcing major overhaul; Takeda drops up to $2 billion for an anti-amyloid drug from AC Immune; and BioSpace reflects on last week’s ASGCT meeting—the good, the bad and the ugly.
Job Trends
Moderna, Inc. announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved mRESVIA, an mRNA respiratory syncytial virus vaccine, to protect adults aged 60 years and older from lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV infection.
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SPECIAL EDITIONS
A new generation of checkpoint inhibitors is emerging, with some showing more promise than others. From recent TIGIT failures to high-potential targets like VEGF, BioSpace explores what’s on the horizon in immuno-oncology.
Peter Marks, the venerable head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, has been forced out. In this special edition of BioPharm Executive, BioSpace takes a deep dive into the instability of the HHS.
Year-over-year BioSpace data show biopharma professionals faced increased competition for fewer employment opportunities during the first quarter of 2025.
DEALS
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In 2023, the ADC market exceeded $10 billion, and this momentum is persisting into 2024, as evidenced by several strategic deals and a robust pipeline of candidate drugs. -
Alumis is debuting in an initial public offering Friday on the Nasdaq, though the $250 million IPO is less than its initial targeted raise of $274 million just days ago. -
AbbVie on Thursday announced it has acquired Celsius Therapeutics to expand its immunology portfolio with a first-in-class TREM1 inhibitor CEL383, following other big players looking to cash in on the hot immuno market. -
After being spun off of sequencing giant Illumina, Grail on Tuesday is set to start trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market following a years-long antitrust battle with regulators. -
The combined company began trading Friday under the Nasdaq symbol TECX. A $130 million private placement was also completed, with a cash runway into mid-2027.
WEIGHT LOSS
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Sen. Bernie Sanders’ aggressive targeting of Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy pricing, and not Eli Lilly’s rival drugs, is not fair. -
In a Tuesday Senate hearing on Novo Nordisk’s drug pricing, CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen said he would be willing to sit down with the three largest pharmacy benefit managers who committed that they would expand coverage of Ozempic and Wegovy if Novo lowers its list prices for the blockbuster drugs. -
New revelations from the showdown between Novo Nordisk’s CEO and Bernie Sanders’ Senate health committee Tuesday; PhRMA’s legal victory in IRA case; the federal interest rate cut and anticipated approval for schizophrenia. -
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are expected to rule the obesity market for a few more years without much challenge. To ensure they stay there as competition enters, the companies are spending billions in licensing and M&A deals.
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Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster type 2 diabetes medication is a sure bet for the list of the next 15 drugs whose Medicare prices will be negotiated in 2025 and go into effect in 2027, according to analysts and academics.
POLICY
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The selection of controversial TV personality Mehmet Oz to run the agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid follows Trump’s pick of RFK Jr. to run its parent department, HHS. -
While the full impact of the Supreme Court decision remains unknown, the new regulatory landscape could be a net positive for drug developers. -
Trump’s HHS pick, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is an anti-vaccine campaigner who has previously said that he plans to gut the FDA on allegations of corruption and reduce the NIH’s headcount. -
Suggestions that the U.S. should emulate other countries on drug price controls or patents obscure how our present policies have allowed drug development to flourish.
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Analyst reactions to Donald Trump’s election victory were mixed Wednesday, with potential positives including an FTC that is likely to be more friendly to M&A, and negatives including concerns about what role Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. might play in healthcare.
You know it’s important to nail the interview with a potential employer, but it’s what you do after an interview that might really influence your chances of getting the job. Find out how in our guide.
Being laid off from a job is stressful. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to curb some of that stress, relieve financial worries and make finding your next position as smooth a process as possible.
Read on to learn about the different nursing positions available in the biopharmaceutical industry, as well as the skills and qualifications you need to be a successful biopharma nurse.
Finding a new job can be a daunting task. From updating your resume to preparing for interviews, there are a lot of moving parts. To help, here are five interview techniques that actually work.
BioSpace spoke with three CEOs: Alto Neuroscience’s Dr. Amit Etkin, Omega Therapeutics’ Mahesh Karande and Rain Therapeutics’ Avanish Vellanki about their companies’ employment growth.
The life science industry is growing rapidly, and many companies have announced expansions and job creation. Still, others have been forced to cut costs and slash jobs. For that and more, continue reading.
HOTBEDS
REPORTS
In this Employment Outlook report, BioSpace explores current workforce sentiment, job activity trends and the prospective job and hiring outlook for 2025, particularly as it compares to the previous year.
BioSpace’s third report on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in life sciences examines dramatic shifts in attitude around diversity initiatives.
CANCER
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Alongside the layoffs, Alligator will also suspend work on all of its earlier-stage assets and devote its resources to lead candidate mitazalimab, being developed for the frontline treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer. -
The cancers were diagnosed 19 to 92 months after Skysona treatment. -
At the conference, AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo will present their case for Dato-DXd in NSCLC, while BioNTech and Merus will reveal promising mid-stage data for their respective cancer candidates. -
Emboldened by technological advances and a deeper knowledge of glioblastoma, Merck, Kazia Therapeutics, CorriXR Therapeutics and others are targeting the often-fatal brain tumor. -
Truqap’s positive clinical data comes after it failed a late-stage study in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. It helps AstraZeneca position itself as a top player in the prostate cancer space, alongside its Big Pharma colleagues.
NEUROSCIENCE
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BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman in a note to investors said the late-stage data for Vertex’s experimental non-opioid pain medication “reaffirms our confidence in the strength of suzetrigine’s profile.” However, William Blair analysts view these data as “an incremental positive” as the company faces challenges in targeting the acute pain market. -
Wave Life Sciences in a Tuesday filing with the SEC said Takeda has elected to terminate its option to continue work on Wave’s WVE-003 clinical-stage Huntington’s disease program—a potential $5 billion commercial opportunity, according to the biotech. -
Johnson & Johnson is cutting several programs—most of which are in neurology and psychiatry—as the company also pulls back from the infectious diseases market. -
Under the deal, the Danish pharma will gain access to Longboard’s 5-HT2C receptor superagonist that is currently in late-stage development for seizures in various developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, including Dravet syndrome. -
Since its inception in 1992, the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway has helped shepherd nearly 300 new drugs to the market. However, recent years have seen a number of high-profile market withdrawals and failed confirmatory trials.
CELL AND GENE THERAPY
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Experts say the time is now to develop and provide widespread access to genetic medicines for the rarest diseases. What’s more, they say it is a moral imperative. -
BioMarin Pharmaceuticals on Monday said it is restricting sales of its hemophilia A gene therapy to three countries in an effort to reduce costs and help the treatment become profitable by 2025. -
Longeveron and Lexeo Therapeutics are working on CGT therapies to treat Alzheimer’s disease, but it’s not clear whether they have a better chance of success than traditional approaches. -
Ultracompact CRISPR systems, which are in some cases one-third the size of Cas9, are being designed to be more specific and enable in vivo gene editing in difficult to reach tissues. -
Approved under the regulator’s accelerated pathway, Tecelra is also the first new synovial sarcoma therapy in more than a decade, according to Adaptimmune Therapeutics.
