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In this bonus episode, BioSpace Managing Editor Jef Akst and Angela Gabriel, content manager, life sciences careers, look at the Q2 job market and discuss encouraging signs for job seekers.
FEATURED STORIES
As antibody-drug conjugates advance and move into earlier lines of treatment, drug developers have to build gentler therapies that don’t just extend survival but improve it.
FDA’s rare disease decisions are strongest when the patient community has a voice in advisory committee decisions.
The lineup at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference will provide critical insight into where the industry is headed with regard to targets being explored to vanquish the elusive neurodegenerative disease.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
Congressional letters sent to the CEOs of Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck, BMS and AbbVie this week voicing concerns about the pharmas’ clinical trials in China highlight an ongoing discrepancy in how government and industry think about the rise of the Asian country’s biotech industry.
THE LATEST
The trials, which were testing the tyrosine kinase inhibitor masitinib, had previously been paused. AB Science’s decision not to resume them was a matter of prioritization, not safety, the biotech said.
The FDA last week confirmed that it would suspend the release of complete response letters pending the resolution of a citizen petition from an unnamed pharma company. Nevertheless, 14 new CRLs are now available on the agency’s portal.
In this episode of Denatured, you’ll hear from Jack Crawford, CEO of Demeetra, and Magnus Gustavsson, chief commercial officer at NorthX Biologics. We unpack the evolution of cell line development — CHO cells, targeted integration, transposases and the collaboration models speeding biologics from sequence to GMP.
GSK and Hansoh Pharmaceutical’s antibody-drug conjugate success validates their partnership, one of the many deals in which Big Pharma has tapped a China company for promising cancer candidates.
The failure of AstraZeneca and Ionis’ Wainua in a late-stage study of ATTR-CM casts doubt on Alnylam’s next-generation candidate but is good news for others in the space, including BridgeBio and Intellia Therapeutics.
Roche’s decision to discontinue the Ionis-partnered trials came soon after the biotech sustained a late-stage failure in ATTR-CM.
Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are pushing for the withdrawal of the rare disease treatment that accounted for just 1% of Amgen’s 2025 revenue. Nevertheless, Amgen continues to defend the medicine, which was acquired in the $3.7 billion buyout of ChemoCentryx.
Biopharma companies won’t fully capture the benefits of AI unless they reorganize their R&D units, according to McKinsey.
The FDA greenlit 26 novel therapies in the first half of 2026, including four for cancer and six for orphan indications. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson took home a combined 11 of the agency’s 79 total approvals, including supplemental nods.
Psychedelics are gaining momentum in depression, with one treating physician predicting that the drug class could “wipe out the SSRIs” if safety and durability hold up.