Drug Development

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In the midst of regulatory and political upheaval, biopharma’s R&D engine kept running, churning out highs and lows in equal parts. Here are some of this year’s most glorious clinical trial victories.
Every year in biopharma brings its share of grueling defeats, and 2025 was no different, especially for companies targeting neurological diseases. Some failures split up partners, and one particularly egregious case even led to the demise of an entire company.
The R&D pipeline for depression therapies faced a demoralizing 2025 as five high-profile candidates, including KOR antagonists by Johnson & Johnson and Neumora Therapeutics, flunked late-stage clinical trials, underscoring the persistent challenges of CNS drug development.
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AbbVie’s antibody-drug conjugate Elahere, developed by ImmunoGen, elicited a nearly 52% objective response rate in heavily pretreated patients with folate receptor-alpha-positive, platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer.
In advance of an advisory committee meeting on Monday, the FDA’s internal reviewers have raised issues regarding Eli Lilly’s Alzheimer’s disease candidate donanemab, flagging problems with its study design and safety outcomes.
Both Eli Lilly and the partnered companies Boehringer Ingelheim and Zealand Pharma have mid-stage data readouts this week, fueling the race in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.
Zealand Pharma said on Thursday that partner Boehringer Ingelheim will present the results from the study on Friday at the European Association of the Study of Liver Congress.
Structure Therapeutics is offering over nine million shares on the heels of mid-stage data for its oral GLP-1 receptor agonist, which showed weight loss of 6.2% in overweight or obese patients.
Amgen’s CD19-directed antibody Uplizna in a late-stage study showed it can suppress the risk of flares by nearly 90% in patients with IgG4-related disease, the company announced Wednesday.
Novo Nordisk will face strong generic competition from at least 15 companies in China for its blockbuster GLP-1 receptor agonist products Wegovy and Ozempic, according to Reuters.
Gilead Sciences’ primary biliary cholangitis candidate seladelpar and Ipsen’s PBC asset elafibranor both showed encouraging Phase III results Wednesday, as they face looming FDA decision dates.
Vir Biotechnology reported Wednesday that its monoclonal antibody tobevibart, as a monotherapy and in combination with Alynylam-partnered elebsiran, achieved high rates of virologic response at week 24 in patients with chronic hepatitis delta.
More than 50% of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis patients treated with Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide saw at least a one-stage improvement in fibrosis, according to the pharma’s latest mid-stage readout.