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As AAV9 and CRISPR programs navigate safety, delivery and scalability hurdles, small molecules offer a deployable, scalable bridge, complementing genetic approaches and accelerating meaningful impact for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
It can cure deadly diseases, save long-term healthcare costs and transform lives. But the U.S. insurance system still isn’t ready to pay for it.
IPO
Blank check deals dwindled after a crazy 2021. Now, biotechs are starting to turn to special purpose acquisition companies again as an easy route to the public markets.
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Although the FDA has rejected Stealth’s new drug application for Barth syndrome candidate elamipretide, the agency identified a potential accelerated approval pathway. The company has pared down its staff to conserve resources to fund a potential resubmission.
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Marty Makary, likely FDA commissioner under President Trump, appeared before Congress this week as the agency he’s set to lead continues to be rocked by sweeping changes and about-faces.
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KER-0193 is a modulator of ion channels connected to autism spectrum disorder. The FDA bestowed orphan drug and rare pediatric drug designations on the candidate earlier this year.
According to analysts, the new data could present a path to accelerated approval for ifinatamab deruxtecan, a product of Merck and Daiichi Sankyo’s troubled ADC partnership.
The World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines list guides high-level procurement and coverage decisions for over 150 countries.
FDA
New FDA expert panels, such as recent meetings on SSRI use during pregnancy and on hormone replacement therapy during menopause, are drawing criticism for being one-sided. One leader says such panels are designed to reach a specific conclusion.
FDA
Amid an unprecedented turnover in leadership at the FDA and mass layoffs of staff, communication has crumbled and uncertainty runs rampant, leaving small and medium biopharma companies without a clear path forward for their therapies.
Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which founded Lykos, bemoaned a “moving of the goal posts” in Lykos’ rejection but looked for positives in the newly released complete response letter.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated a series of anti-vaccine talking points during his appearance in front of the Senate finance committee on Thursday, as Democratic and Republican senators alike hammered the Health Secretary on recent COVID-19 vaccine restrictions and his views on Operation Warp Speed.
Ousted CDC Director Susan Monarez claimed in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal Thursday that she was fired for refusing to rubber-stamp COVID-19 recommendations to be made by an advisory panel that has expressed “antivaccine rhetoric.”
Despite hitting its efficacy targets in the Phase III COAST-1 study, Sanofi’s amlitelimab remains “meaningfully inferior” to Dupixent, according to analysts at Leerink Partners.
Hengrui Pharmaceuticals has been busy this year, signing a nearly $2 billion cardio contract with Merck in March and a 12-asset agreement with GSK in July worth up to $12 billion.