In a livestreamed meeting Tuesday afternoon, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drew a dark portrait of the state of America’s health while addressing the MAHA Commission’s most recent report, which includes plans to research potential links between vaccines and rising rates of chronic disease.
The autoimmune and inflammatory disease–focused company canceled plans to go public earlier this year as the IPO window slammed shut.
These 27 markets, comprising countries across Asia, Europe and South America, together contributed some 12% of Lundbeck’s earnings in 2024.
Jefferies analysts expect a regulatory filing for rocatinlimab later this year, with a product launch in 2026.
Cullinan Therapeutics and Taiho Oncology’s zipalertinib elicited promising response rates in two mid-stage studies of non-small cell lung cancer patients with typical and uncommon EGFR mutations.
CDC
Former CDC director Susan Monarez and former chief medical officer Debra Houry will appear in front of the Senate HELP Committee on Sept. 17.
Novo Nordisk also lowered its full-year profit growth guidance in connection with the restructuring effort. The pharma now anticipates operating profit to grow from 4% to 10%, down from its prior projection of 10% to 16%.
FEATURED STORIES
Generate:Biomedicines’ Nicole Clouse is one of the key legal minds trying to understand who owns what AI creates. The answers are critical to the future of biotech.
If the trend holds, IQVIA expects 2025 deal volume between Chinese and multinational companies to easily eclipse the 100 agreements signed in 2024.
Companies have claimed improvements to yield, batch consistency and output while acknowledging the risks and challenges created by the technology.
The mad rush for safe and effective obesity drugs has winners—including Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy—and losers. Here are five molecules that never made it to the market.
While it’s impossible to make apples-to-apples comparisons of the many obesity candidates with so many differences across clinical trials, we at BioSpace are giving it our best shot.
With results from highly anticipated trials of Eli Lilly’s orforglipron and Viking Therapeutics’ VK2735 “underwhelming” investors, William Blair’s Andy Hsieh predicts weight loss pills will play a bigger role in low- and middle-income countries than in the U.S.
FROM BIOSPACE INSIGHTS
Before companies and investors look towards the future, they must first understand the opportunities and challenges AI presents to them. From the benefits included in advancing processes to cybersecurity hazards, AI innovation is a balanced scale of oppportunities and risks.
LATEST PODCASTS
In this episode presented by Eclipsebio, BioSpace’s head of insights Lori Ellis continues the discussion on mRNA and srRNA with Andy Geall of Replicate Bioscience and Alliance for mRNA Medicines and Pad Chivukula of Arcturus Therapeutics.
In this episode presented by IQVIA, BioSpace’s head of insights Lori Ellis discusses the evolving role of local qualified persons for pharmacovigilance with ⁠Ana Pedro Jesuíno⁠, global head local QPPV network at IQVIA.
Around 3,500 FDA employees received termination emails; FDA Commissioner Marty Makary suggests lowering industry user fees and tying review times to drug prices; the regulator opens its trove of complete response letters in the name of transparency; and two companies receive rejections for rare disease therapies.
Job Trends
In a recent BioSpace LinkedIn poll, nearly half of respondents predicted the job market won’t turn around until 2027 or later. It’s easy to see why people are skeptical, especially when you consider recent hiring activity and layoffs.
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SPECIAL EDITIONS
In this deep dive BioSpace analyzes the neuropsychedelic therapeutics pipeline, which grabbed headlines in February when the FDA accepted the New Drug Application for Lykos Therapeutics’ MDMA capsules for PTSD.
In this deep dive, BioSpace takes a closer look at the drug price crisis in the U.S. As President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump gear up for a rematch in the 2024 election, we explore how federal reforms to lower costs could be leveraged on the campaign trail.
The job response rate has risen year over year, according to BioSpace data, indicating competition for roles posted on our website has increased.
DEALS
  1. The rise of monoclonal antibodies brought back hope for stalling or reversing the devastating neurodegenerative disease. Big Pharma has taken notice with a handful of high-value deals, GlobalData reports.
  2. Jefferies analysts called the proxy filing, which is a standard disclosure after a merger agreement, “much more intriguing than normal” given the regulatory turmoil it revealed.
  3. Minovia’s lead product is MNV-201, an autologous hematopoietic stem cell product that is enriched with allogeneic mitochondria.
  4. Flagship Pioneering’s ProFound Therapeutics will use its proprietary technology to mine the expanded proteome for novel cardiovascular therapeutics. Novartis has promised to pay up to $750 million per target, though it has not specified how many targets it will go after.
  5. Leading companies spent $1.4 billion upfront on licensing deals and embarked on vast R&D programs. Clinical setbacks mean many companies are unlikely to ever recoup their investments.
WEIGHT LOSS
  1. CBER Chief Vinay Prasad reclaimed his job less than two weeks after his mysterious exit; MAHA implementor Gray Delany is out after reportedly sparring with other agency officials over communications strategy; Eli Lilly’s first Phase III readout for oral obesity drug orforglipron missed analyst expectations; and Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals addresses the recent woes of its of partner Sarepta.
  2. Novo Nordisk has plummeted back to Earth after a stunning rise driven by Ozempic and Wegovy. Can the storied Danish pharma recover?
  3. Leaders at Eli Lilly believe heavy investment in the company’s manufacturing footprint “sets a high standard that newcomers may find challenging to match.” At least one of those newcomers disagrees.
  4. Here are five oral obesity candidates that, according to Mizuho’s Graig Suvannavejh, could change the weight loss game.
  5. From the price of forthcoming weight loss pill orforglipron, to Most Favored Nation drug pricing and the market battle with Novo Nordisk, pricing was the number one issue for Eli Lilly on its second quarter earnings call.
POLICY
  1. The CDC director—the first to be confirmed by the Senate under new legislation—has been ousted after less than a month following internal unrest regarding new, more restrictive approvals for updated COVID-19 vaccines, according to multiple sources.
  2. Scott Gottlieb, who served as FDA commissioner during the first Trump administration, wrote in a JAMA editorial that China is speeding drugs to market and could potentially surpass the U.S. in the innovation game.
  3. The MIT professor of management, who already sits on the CDC’s revamped immunization advisory committee, is a known skeptic of vaccines, particularly mRNA technology.
  4. The White House has denied reports that the government could soon ban COVID-19 vaccines, noting that in the absence of an official announcement, “any discussion about HHS policy should be dismissed as baseless speculation.”
  5. Thousands of employees across the Department of Health and Human Services are set to lose their collective bargaining rights in a move that American Federation of Government Employees national president Everett Kelley called “illegal and immoral.”
CAREER HUB
A BioSpace LinkedIn poll found that job ghosting and ghost jobs are the biggest pet peeves for applicants now. Recruitment Manager Greg Clouse offers advice on dealing with them.
Check out five New York companies hiring biopharma professionals like you, including 2025 Best Places to Work winners.
Plus, communication errors that cost job offers and how to craft a LinkedIn “About” section
Year-over-year BioSpace data shows there are fewer job postings live on the website and far more competition for them.
At Johns Hopkins University, the biomedical engineering program’s Design Team offering lets undergraduates dive deep into clinical projects that can help them land industry jobs, get provisional patents or even start companies.
Not everyone who completes a life sciences Ph.D. wants to continue working in a laboratory or in research. If this is the case for you, here are 12 careers for Ph.D. life scientists outside of the lab.
Candidates looking to enter biotech should focus on cultivating key skills, thoughtfully crafting their resumes and putting their best, most authentic foot forward in interviews. An internship, co-op or fellowship won’t hurt, either.
HOTBEDS
Where are the Best Places to Work in life sciences? BioSpace’s annual Best Places to Work list demonstrates a company’s desirability in the recruitment marketplace - find out who made the list this year.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Claiming that the domestic market undervalues pharma innovation, Merck has decided to pull the plug on all of its R&D efforts in the U.K.
REPORTS
This labor market report examines Q3 life science job market trends and the recruitment outlook for Q4 and beyond.
BioSpace surveyed life sciences employers to understand attitudes and current trends on AI usage in recruiting. This report explores the benefits of using AI tools in recruitment and provides practical recommendations for HR and talent acquisition professionals to leverage AI effectively. Concurrently, this report highlights the challenges and risks of using these tools without critical thought and intention.
As competition for life sciences talent peaks, BioSpace has undertaken research to determine what employers can do to ensure they don’t lose out on talent they actually want to hire and retain.
CANCER
  1. In an open letter, 22 experts who designed and ran Replimune’s Phase III IGNYTE trial answered the FDA’s issues, as outlined in the complete response letter for the melanoma candidate RP1.
  2. According to reporting from multiple outlets, Richard Pazdur, head of the Oncology Center of Excellence at CDER, opposed the consensus opinion of CBER staff to approve the drug. Replimune’s stock has dropped precipitously since the rejection.
  3. The company expects that the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination rate will be “maybe a couple of points lower” than the prior level of around 20% but that pricing and Comirnaty’s market share will hold steady.
  4. The pivotal Phase II trial is testing Allogene’s CAR T candidate cemacabtagene ansegedleucel for large B-cell lymphoma. ALLO-647 was being used as a preparative lymphodepletion therapy.
  5. After decades of limited progress—owing to the difficulty of treating the disease and resultant market risk—glioblastoma research is entering a new phase spurred by smarter trials, targeted funding and renewed interest from companies like Merck and Jazz Pharmaceuticals.
NEUROSCIENCE
  1. Bristol Myers Squibb tested Cobenfy as an adjunctive treatment with atypical antipsychotics for schizophrenia in the Phase III ARISE study, which earlier this year failed to demonstrate significant symptom improvement.
  2. Move over Humira, Skyrizi and Rinvoq are expected to beat the former megablockbuster’s peak sales by the end of this year.
  3. Rumors of Biogen’s disagreements with Eisai have been greatly exaggerated, CEO Chris Viehbacher said during a second quarter earnings call. The partnered Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi saw sales climb 20% for the period.
  4. Long-term extension data presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference showed amyloid plaque reaccumulation remained slow at up to 2.5 years of follow-up in patients who were taken off of treatment with Eli Lilly’s anti-amyloid antibody.
  5. Long-term data presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference show Leqembi can help patients stay in the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s disease as compared to the condition’s natural progression.
CELL AND GENE THERAPY
  1. Second-quarter earnings come amid many high-level challenges for the biopharma industry. How will these five closely watched biotechs fare?
  2. Dispatch seeks to address two main challenges of immunotherapies in solid tumors: the lack of a target and the immunosuppressive tumor environment.
  3. The voluntary pauses follow two patient deaths associated with the Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy.
  4. Sarepta Therapeutics’ stock has dropped precipitously as questions swirl around the safety of its gene therapies. Meanwhile, the Duchenne patient community fears losing access to Elevidys while the regulator considers more drastic action.
  5. After initially refusing to suspend Elevidys distribution after two deaths, Sarepta has now given in to the FDA’s request, noting the need to maintain a good working relationship with the regulator.