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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.
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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.
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Though nerves abound for funders and founders in the industry, money continues to flow into startups, sometimes in eye-popping numbers. BioSpace rounds up the biggest raises so far this year.
Under the Inflation Reduction Act, medications with the same active ingredient will be treated as the same drug for price negotiation purposes—even if approved by the FDA under a separate application—disincentivizing companies from investing time and money in gaining approval for new formulations and indications.
FDA
The FDA’s dramatic summer continues to unfold as news broke late Tuesday evening that Vinay Prasad will depart the agency, where he had been the head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research for less than three months.
Pascal Soriot’s comments came during AstraZeneca’s Q2 earnings call in regard to President Donald Trump’s newly announced European pharma tariffs. The company also announced estimate-beating earnings, with its cancer portfolio driving earnings despite clinical roadblocks.
CEO Rob Davis referred to the cost reduction program as a ‘reallocation’ rather than a cut, with the savings to be reinvested to support up to 20 new product launches.
In a surprise double announcement Tuesday, Novo reduced sales guidance by 5%—attributing the change to slowed growth of its semaglutide franchise in the U.S.—and named current international operations head Maziar Mike Doustdar as its new president and CEO.
Six weeks after HHS Secretary RFK Jr. cited unexplained conflicts of interest in dismissing all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, Democrats are asking for details.
While some analysts forecast the tariffs could mean billions in additional industry expenditure, others expect the overall impact to be “manageable.”
In a post on X, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. alleged that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has “devolved into a morass of inefficiency, favoritism, and outright corruption.”
BMS is spinning out a new company with five immunology assets, including oral drugs being developed for systemic lupus erythematosus and plaque psoriasis, and $300 million in funds from Bain Capital.