Annalee Armstrong headshot

Annalee Armstrong

Senior Editor

Annalee Armstrong is an award-winning biopharma journalist covering the business of drug development. She began her career at small newspapers across Western Canada. During the assignment of a lifetime, the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race, she met her husband in Alaska and eventually moved to the U.S. Since then, Annalee has covered energy, environmental regulations, healthcare and biopharma. Prior to BioSpace, Annalee was senior editor for Fierce Biotech, where she received several awards for her writing and editing. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with her husband, two wild boys, an anxious Rhodesian Ridgeback and an indifferent tabby cat.

Venture Capital firms Atlas Venture, Bain Capital Life Sciences and RTW Investments have led a $400 million Series A for Kailera Therapeutics, the latest obesity biotech to hit the scene.
In an effort to expand its cash runway beyond 12 months, Prime Medicine has signed a deal with Bristol Myers Squibb worth a potential $3.5 billion, while also streamlining its pipeline to trim costs.
Pfizer’s sudden market withdrawal of sickle cell therapy Oxbryta, which some analysts predicted would reach $750 million in sales by the end of the decade, has left patients and healthcare providers with few options, while investors question the pharma giant’s dealmaking prowess.
ARCH Venture Partners is the latest venture capital firm to raise a multi-billion-dollar fund. The cash will be used to support new startups working with AI.
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.
Amid a flurry of weight loss readouts, a fresh-on-the-scene startup has come out with Phase I results showing weight loss at day 36 on par with or better than competitors, with few gastrointestinal side effects.
Flagship Pioneering–backed Generate:Biomedicines has signed its second major Big Pharma partnership, bringing in $65 million upfront to use its AI platform to discover novel protein drug candidates.
Novo Nodrisk’s cannabinoid receptor–targeting obesity pill was picked up in the $1.1 billion acquisition of Inversago Pharmaceuticals last year.
The drop in interest rate is slightly bigger than anticipated and good news for the biotech industry, but little will change in the near term.
In the battle over drug prices, one sector of the healthcare industry has risen above all the players as the boogeyman: pharmacy benefit managers. In this special edition of BioPharm Executive, BioSpace takes a deep dive into the lens now focused on PBMs’ business practices.
M&A
The sale of Dermavant clears the way for Roivant to focus on autoimmune-focused Immunovant and a slate of upcoming pivotal trials.
Infusions of Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics’ Casgevy and bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia have begun; Moderna targets 10 approvals through 2027; more oral obesity drug data; the latest from ESMO and more.
Last month, Vertex said sickle cell patients had not yet received infusions of its gene therapy Casgevy. That’s now changed, as the company races with bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia.
Bristol Myers Squibb presented the positive Phase III results on its already approved Opdivo-Yervoy combo at ESMO over the weekend, while separately announcing that it was returning Immatics’ bispecific T cell engager.