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Roche’s obesity candidate achieves 22.5% weight loss in Phase II; Moderna pulls the plug on late-stage vaccine trials as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine policies and rhetoric continues; and embattled gene therapy maker Sarepta announces new data in Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
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With the biopharma industry performing better of late, analysts, executives and other industry watchers are “cautiously optimistic”—a term heard all over the streets of San Francisco at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference earlier this month.
Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK and Merck are contributing drug ingredients as part of their deals with the White House but are keeping many of the terms of their agreements private.
Some 200 rare disease therapies are at risk of losing eligibility for a pediatric priority review voucher, a recent analysis by the Rare Disease Company Coalition shows. That could mean $4 billion in missed revenue for already cash-strapped biotechs.
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The FDA’s rare pediatric disease priority review voucher program missed reauthorization at the last minute in 2024; advocates have been fighting to get it back ever since.
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The chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability wants the CEOs of CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx to fix statements they made in a hearing last month that contradicted the committee’s and Federal Trade Commission’s findings.
In its legal complaint, filed in the District Court for New Jersey, Regeneron alleges that Sandoz failed to provide it with relevant information required under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act.
Armed with new late-stage data on reducing low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, Novartis is positioning its siRNA therapy Leqvio as a preventive treatment for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
Neurocrine Biosciences’ potential competitor to Bristol Myers Squibb’s KarXT improved symptoms of schizophrenia in a Phase II trial, but only at the low dose tested.
Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office are all targeting Big Pharma’s practice of filing multiple, overlapping patents that stifle generic and biosimilar competition.
Genentech’s latest layoffs are the second round of workforce reductions this year, following the company’s announcement in April that it was letting go around 3% of employees.
Quotient Therapeutics’ platform targets somatic mutations, which the startup contends can help identify a broader scope of genes potentially associated with disease phenotypes. Wednesday’s agreement is part of an existing partnership between Pfizer and Flagship Pioneering.
Navigator Medicine is looking to push its lead asset NAV-240 targeting immune-mediated diseases through to clinical studies “in the coming months,” which the startup in-licensed from a South Korean biotech for $20 million upfront.
For reasons including downsizing, avoiding retirement and a tight labor market, senior-level biopharma professionals are increasingly turning to fractional roles, according to two recruitment experts.
The regulator’s restrictions come as the U.S. is experiencing a surge in cases. Invivyd also announced updated Phase III data for Pemgarda, touting an 84% relative reduction in symptomatic COVID-19.