News
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.
FEATURED STORIES
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.
Molecular glue degraders are gaining traction in the clinic as well as funding from Big Pharma, with their potential to treat previously “undruggable” cancers and immunological diseases. Here are five clinical programs worth keeping an eye on.
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.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
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.
THE LATEST
Despite the disappointing late-stage results in non-small cell lung cancer, Jefferies analyst Stephen Barker contends the likelihood of FDA approval “remains high” for the experimental antibody-drug conjugate, though the regulator is now more likely to convene an advisory committee.
Candid Therapeutics, which is repositioning two antibodies for autoimmune indications, will be led by Ken Song who was previously CEO of RayzeBio and oversaw its $4.1 billion acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb.
Terns Pharmaceuticals will advance TERN-601 into Phase II after early-stage data showed the oral therapy led to weight loss of 4.9%, comparable with weight loss pills Lilly and Pfizer are developing, according to analysts.
Set to start in 2025, Relay Therapeutics is moving toward a pivotal study of experimental treatment RLY-2608 in heavily pretreated locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.
GSK’s twice-yearly depemokimab reduced asthma attacks by half and cut clinic visits by nearly three-quarters, positioning it for an estimated $4 billion in peak sales if approved.
In advanced non-small cell lung cancer, Summit Therapeutics’ ivonescimab appears to be 49% more effective at reducing the risk of disease progression or death versus Merck’s Keytruda in a late-stage study. However, analysts contend the caveat is that the trial was conducted in an entirely Chinese patient population.
Follow-up data from the MARIPOSA study show a favorable overall survival trend versus Tagrisso in EGFR-mutated advanced non-small cell lung cancer. The findings come just weeks after the Rybrevant-Lazcluze combination was approved for the first-line treatment.
Using a computational biomarker, the companies say they can identify which patients would derive significant clinical benefit from their experimental antibody-drug conjugate. AstraZeneca and Roche are co-developing and commercializing a companion diagnostic for the biomarker.
The next generation of Alzheimer’s therapeutics is moving away from amyloid plaques and tau tangles, offering multiple approaches to slow cognitive decline.
As Congress considers a bill that aims to distance U.S. biopharma from five Chinese companies, the industry must emphasize the importance of prioritizing patient care over power plays.