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FDA
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.
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Even as FDA approvals for biologic therapies fell in the first half of 2026, regulatory experts are optimistic about a turnaround in the rare disease space after the departure of key leaders at the agency. Still, there will continue to be tension between science and politics.
Early-stage financing rounds are on track to hit their lowest dollar value in years as funders continue to eschew risky investments, experts told BioSpace.
A mostly black box since emerging with more than a billion dollars in hand, Xaira Therapeutics is slowly pulling back the curtain, revealing plans to find partners and validate its pipeline.
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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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The deal, announced late Wednesday, will provide AbbVie with access to Cerevel Therapeutics’ pipeline of clinical-stage and preclinical candidates for psychiatric and neurological diseases.
Transfer RNA’s unique biology could enable a mutation-specific, gene-agnostic—and more cost effective—approach to developing treatments for thousands of rare and ultra-rare diseases.
Although looking for candidates on platforms like LinkedIn continues to be the norm, some headhunters are also combing Google Scholar and PubMed for authors with relevant skills.
Carina Clingman, founder of The Collaboratory Career Hub, answers questions about the ins and outs of finding, landing and succeeding in openings in biotech.
The regulator has accepted Bristol Myers Squibb’s Opdivo and the chemotherapy cisplatin for priority review in patients with unresectable metastatic urothelial carcinoma, as well as Merck and Seagen’s first-line combo.
The study found only 19% of nearly 2,000 patients were still taking their prescribed anti-obesity medication at 12 months, compared to 40% that continued with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy.
This week we discuss ups and downs in the weight loss and ADC markets - including Altimmune, Pfizer setbacks, AbbVie’s ImmunoGen buy and more.
FDA
The Swiss pharma’s Fabhalta, a Factor B inhibitor, is the first FDA-approved oral monotherapy for adults with the rare blood disorder paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
With the biopharma industry’s looming wave of gene therapy submissions and potential approvals, the senior senator is laying the groundwork for a legislative initiative to improve access to these expensive treatments.
In two late-stage trials, the experimental oral drug evobrutinib was unable to significantly reduce annualized relapse rates in MS patients compared with Sanofi’s Aubagio tablets.