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.

AbbVie launched a revamped version of its Allē loyalty program, which ultimately was not adopted by providers. The marketing misstep comes as the company’s aesthetics franchise faces broader pressures.
After the Phase II failure of its lead asset from Cerevel, AbbVie is resetting expectations and narrowing the clinical program to an adjunct approach—for now.
Biogen’s effort to buy Sage against the board’s wishes and a long-time effort by investor Alcorn to scuttle Aurion’s IPO underscore the cutthroat nature of biopharma dealmaking.
The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference started off with a flurry of deals that reinvigorated excitement across the biopharma industry. Johnson & Johnson moved to acquire Intra-Cellular Therapies for $14.6 billion, breaking a dealmaking barrier that kept Big Pharma’s 2024 biotech buyouts to under $5 billion.
Donald Trump continues to make waves in biopharma; Sage rejects Biogen’s unsolicited takeover offer; the obesity space sees more action with new company launches, IPOs and fresh data; and experts get ready for an important era in the Duchenne muscular dystrophy space.
After two years characterized by layoffs, pipeline reorganizations, FDA delays and clinical holds, Novavax CEO John Jacobs says the company is at a pivot point.
Following a lawsuit filed last week, Sage has officially rejected Biogen’s unsolicited buyout offer, which valued the embattled biotech at just $469 million.
The Japanese pharma had one asset rejected by the FDA and withdrew a regulatory application for another, but already this month the company has secured an approval for AstraZeneca-partnered Dato-DXd, to be marketed as Datroway.
The unsuccessful Phase III results are the latest to suggest that the blockbuster cancer drug is finally bumping up against its limits after racking up around 50 approvals since getting its first FDA nod in September 2014.
Protein degradation–focused Neomorph nabs its third Big Pharma deal of around $1.5 billion in less than a year.
On the company’s Q4 earnings call where an eyepopping $88.8 billion in full-year sales were revealed, leaders shifted focus away from enormous takeovers to single-digit billion buy outs.
At J.P. Morgan, most biopharma executives expressed a neutral stance on the incoming administration, but just days later, President Trump issued multiple executive orders that concern the industry.
Five years ago, Gilead signed a massive deal with Galapagos. After a restructuring, the pharma is still hunting for the potential it saw at the original signing.
Biopharma executives shared their thoughts on the potential impacts of the new administration; Annalee Armstrong recaps JPM and her talks with Biogen, Gilead, Novavax and more; Wegovy’s higher dose induces more weight loss; AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo’s Dato-DXd scores its first FDA approval.
Biopharma executives make their predictions for the year ahead, from a bold forecast for the return of the megadeal to a plea for the slow, healthy recovery of the industry at large.