Biogen
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Biogen is growing as planned, with marketed products generating more revenue and multiple late-stage readouts expected over the next year. Building out an early-stage pipeline would be a bonus, CEO Chris Viehbacher said on a Q3 earnings call Wednesday.
Growth portfolio products like Leqembi and Spinraza helped drive Biogen to $2.8 billion in revenue for the third quarter.
All signs continue to point forward for Biogen’s initial foray into lupus, as litifilimab elicited clear or almost clear skin within one year in patients with cutaneous lupus in a mid-stage study. Data from two Phase 3 studies of systemic lupus are expected by the end of the year.
Workforce cuts this year at seven companies involved in recent mergers and acquisitions will cost over 1,300 employees their jobs. Affected businesses include Arcellx and Tourmaline Bio, acquired by Gilead Sciences and Novartis, respectively.
Three years after Qalsody was approved by the FDA as the first drug to target a genetic cause of ALS, some patients are reporting not only disease stabilization but also improvement of symptoms.
With so many unknowns, Biogen is carefully eyeing its next-gen Alzheimer’s treatment diranersen as a high-risk, high-reward project with the potential for a major payout around 2030.
Biogen officially began reporting revenue from the $5.6 billion acquisition of Apellis in the second quarter, shaking up analysts’ consensus estimates and leading to a beat.
Takeda’s cuts will go the deepest, affecting over 4,700 employees. Layoffs tied to M&A activity include BioNTech letting go of around 800 people at CureVac.
New mid-stage data from Biogen’s Ionis-partnered therapy diranersen served to both validate the tau hypothesis in Alzheimer’s disease and raise questions that could soon be elucidated by anti-tau candidates from Denali Therapeutics, Eisai and Eli Lilly.
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