Deals

Novartis and Unnatural Products did not specify which disease targets they’re going after, only noting that the latter’s macrocyclic platform can generate potentially next-generation therapies that could apply to cardiovascular conditions.
FEATURED STORIES
Henry Gosebruch, who has $3.5 billion in capital to deploy, is thinking broad as he steers the decades-old biotech out of years of turmoil. 
Speaking on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Novo business development executive Tamara Darsow said the company is gunning for obesity and diabetes assets.
Buying vaccine biotech Dynavax was an easy choice for Sanofi despite anti-vaccine moves by the Trump administration.
Subscribe to BioPharm Executive
Market insights and trending stories for biopharma leaders, in your inbox every Wednesday
THE LATEST
FDA
Friday’s FDA approval of Vertex-CRISPR’s Casgevy and bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia has immediately revealed startling differences between these two gene therapies: price and a black-box warning.
The deal, announced late Wednesday, will provide AbbVie with access to Cerevel Therapeutics’ pipeline of clinical-stage and preclinical candidates for psychiatric and neurological diseases.
This week we discuss ups and downs in the weight loss and ADC markets - including Altimmune, Pfizer setbacks, AbbVie’s ImmunoGen buy and more.
The acquisition will give Roche access to Carmot’s clinical portfolio of three GLP-1 receptor agonists, placing it squarely in the middle of the competition to treat overweight and obesity.
AbbVie’s $10.1 billion ImmunoGen buy and Altimmune’s Phase II win demonstrate that the antibody-drug conjugate market is red hot in cancer and GLP-1 drugs for weight loss are an absolute craze.
Facing the loss of Humira revenues from biosimilar competition, AbbVie is looking to grow its pipeline by acquiring ImmunoGen and its antibody-drug conjugate Elahere, which was granted FDA accelerated approval last year.
This week on The Weekly we talk struggles with ⁠GLP-1 drug shortages⁠ and what that might mean for Novo and Lilly competitors; Regeneron and Sanofi positive results for ⁠⁠⁠Dupixent⁠⁠⁠ in COPD. Plus, Merck ⁠buys Caraway⁠, Beigene’s ⁠deal⁠ with Ensem, ⁠ups⁠ and ⁠downs⁠ for Flagship.
The buy brings three small molecules in preclinical development for Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and lysosomal storage diseases into Merck’s pipeline.
Armed with a pipeline of obesity and diabetes hopefuls, Carmot Therapeutics joins the small group of biotechs to attempt a Nasdaq debut this year.
Successful drugs from Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly are just the beginning of what one analyst says could be “the largest therapeutic class of drugs that the biopharma industry has ever seen.”