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Overall, the top 16 largest pharmaceutical companies spent $159 billion on research and development in 2025, compared to $165 billion the year prior. Here’s where all that cash went at companies like Johnson & Johnson, Amgen and Pfizer.
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If the U.S. can help Japan reform its drug pricing controls, both countries stand to benefit.
Eli Lilly and Regeneron are leading the push to treat congenital deafness with gene therapies, seeking a piece of a potential billion-dollar market and banking on local delivery and the small amount of drug required to overcome key safety concerns.
The FDA’s Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program, unveiled in June 2025, is “shrouded in secrecy,” Democratic representative Jake Auchincloss said last month, as regulatory and biopharma leaders try to decode the criteria for investigational or approved drugs to receive a voucher.
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While requests by government officials for anonymity when speaking to the media are nothing new, the practice attracts more scrutiny when the Department for Health and Human Services has pledged a commitment to “radical transparency.”
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Biopharmas are less focused on local job candidates and are more open to recruiting regardless of location, according to the new BioSpace employment outlook report. Even employers who prefer to hire locally would consider remote hires for some roles.
After a series of deaths in patients taking Sarepta Therapeutics’ gene therapies, doubt has crept into investor sentiments around the long-time Wall Street darling, and patients may soon begin looking elsewhere.
In addition to claiming revenue of $19.3 billion for the fourth quarter, Eli Lilly executives offered a glimpse into their strategy to expand their GLP-1 franchise into the immunology and inflammation space, with trials currently underway in asthma, psoriatic arthritis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly both think the Wegovy pill is doing well, but the American rival sees the successful launch as a harbinger of good news for its own candidate, orforglipron, which is expected to hit the market in the second quarter.
On its fourth quarter earnings call Wednesday, AbbVie CEO Robert Michael called oncology and neuroscience “underappreciated” areas of focus for the pharma.
Novo Nordisk CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar acknowledged the market pressure facing the company’s GLP-1 products but sought to assure investors that Novo has the situation under control.
Amgen believes that it can transcend the expected tradeoff between convenience and efficacy, anticipating that its investigational obesity drug MariTide will continue to provide competitive weight loss even at monthly or longer schedules.
After review, Amgen is certain that Tavneos is effective and has a favorable benefit-risk profile. The company informed the FDA on January 28 that they would not pull the drug.
Instead of joining the increasingly crowded GLP-1 arena, GSK will focus its efforts downstream of obesity—a push currently anchored by its Phase III-ready FGF21 analog efimosfermin alfa for liver fibrosis.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts said the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program did not receive congressional backing. The FDA has also not yet made disclosures for eight senior reviewers, according to Auchincloss.