News

IPO
After debuting on the public markets with $256.3 million and raking in an additional $472 million, Veradermics has emerged as one of biotech’s biggest post-IPO standouts. CEO Reid Waldman credits the weight loss craze for establishing consumer-driven channels.
FEATURED STORIES
Last month, the FDA launched TrialBlazer, intended to streamline the IND path and bring early clinical trials and medical innovation home to the U.S. It’s a start, but new agency leadership must see it through.
FDA
Significant leadership instability at the FDA—compounded by continued workforce attrition—led to a slight slowdown in overall regulatory productivity in the first half of this year, but the agency has been catching up of late.
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.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
If cell and gene therapy makers are going to achieve their mission to improve patients’ lives, the industry must come together to share information across stakeholders, from regulators to manufacturers to payers.
THE LATEST
Looking for a new role in and around San Francisco? Check out these companies hiring across all disciplines.
Recent BioSpace industry conference conversations point to sponsors pushing earlier on safety, quality and performance data, leading to demand for nitrosamine analysis, IVRT/IVPT and microbiome database capabilities.
Jubilant HollisterStier received a warning letter over problems that the FDA said necessitate an immediate and comprehensive assessment of the contract manufacturing organization’s global operations.
After 27 deaths were reported in a group receiving its blood cancer drug, ADC Therapeutics is downsizing, implementing layoffs for about 30 workers.
A few short days after announcing an FDA pivot on a separate asset, REGENXBIO is planning to test the agency’s apparent newfound rare disease outlook on another late-stage gene therapy.
FDA
A new report from RBC Capital Markets lists Biotechnology Innovation Organization chief executive John Crowley and military physician Heidi Overton as potential candidates for the role of FDA commissioner—in addition to the agency’s current acting leader, top food regulator Kyle Diamantas.
The FDA has so far secured 600 new hires and is looking for 1,600 more as interim leadership at the agency aims to rebuild the workforce and morale after more than a year of intense attrition.
Novartis and Antares Therapeutics are shooting for the stars, launching a joint mission to develop small molecule oncology therapies.
Lilly has already spent more than $25 billion in potential business development commitments this year, including the $6.3 billion buyout of Centessa Pharmaceuticals that closed today.
AbbVie scooped up immunology player Apogee Therapeutics for nearly $11 billion in one of the year’s top deals to-date, while Sanofi made a big play to survive its upcoming Dupixent patent cliff; FDA uncertainty continues as the agency changes direction on gene therapies by uniQure and REGENXBIO; and Jef Akst and Annalee Armstrong report back from San Diego.