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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Pharmaceutical companies are combining antibodies with radioisotopes in a bid to more precisely deliver radiation to cancers and tumors.
Massachusetts residents voted Tuesday against the Natural Psychedelic Substances Act, which would have seen some psychedelics, including psilocybin and dimethyltryptamine, legalized in the state.
In the wake of Pfizer’s voluntary market withdrawal of the popular sickle cell disease therapy, BioSpace looks at five investigational drugs currently making their way through the pipeline.
The move is a blow to Gilead’s cancer portfolio. Trodelvy, an antibody-drug conjugate granted accelerated approval for bladder cancer in 2021, failed its confirmatory trial earlier this year.
RSV
Merck’s investigational antibody clesrovimab demonstrated more than 60% effectiveness in reducing some types of respiratory syncytial virus-associated infections in infants, while Pfizer’s RSV vaccine Abrysvo showed 90% effectiveness at preventing the most severe RSV cases in adults 60 years and older.
Earlier this month, Kezar Life Sciences announced that the mid-stage test of zetomipzomib in lupus nephritis had been placed on an FDA clinical hold. Now, that program is being terminated.
Real-world evidence show that GSK and ViiV Healthcare’s long-acting pre-exposure prophylaxis Apretude can prevent nearly all HIV infections, while rival Gilead Sciences is moving quickly toward an approval for a twice-yearly option.
The mpox vaccine induced an antibody response in adolescents aged 12 to 17 years that matched that in adults, suggesting the shot can be used to protect the highly susceptible group.
Opdivo showed a 52% progression-free survival advantage over Adcetris in newly diagnosed Hodgkin’s lymphoma, according to a Phase III study that combined either therapy with doxorubicin, vinblastine and dacarbazine.
Artificial intelligence won’t replace people in biopharma, but it is infiltrating every step of drug development, including in some ways that aren’t so obvious.