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As cell and gene therapy developers face rising pressure to produce therapies faster and at lower cost, the industry is leaning on robotics, digital systems and partnerships to bridge the gap between innovation and delivery.
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The upcoming FDA decision for Replimune’s advanced melanoma drug could be a litmus test for the agency’s future regulatory decision-making, analysts say, with implications stretching well beyond one company.
FDA
While recent FDA guidance speaks to the agency’s support of innovative trial designs—including the use of external controls—the application of this flexibility appears to be inconsistent. One former regulator says the situation is more nuanced.
With CBER director Vinay Prasad set to depart the agency at the end of the month, a coalition of patient groups and biotech executives penned a letter imploring the Trump administration to “restore regulatory clarity” for rare disease therapies. Experts on a BioSpace panel last week also acknowledged the challenges faced by a more stringent FDA.
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As Big Pharma companies consider foregoing European drug launches to avoid reducing drug prices in the U.S. in alignment with Trump’s Most Favored Nation policy, patients will suffer.
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With leaner teams and tighter budgets, senior leaders can face tremendous strain as they juggle increased workloads and leadership responsibilities. In this column, Kaye/Bassman’s Michael Pietrack discusses how pressure builds and what can ease it.
PitchBook’s 2025 biopharma VC analysis clocked $33.8 billion in capital dispatched in 2025, mainly to companies with later-stage programs ready to roll into the clinic.
Long an R&D company that partnered off assets, RNAi biotech Ionis Pharmaceuticals shifted in 2025 to bring two medicines to market alone. Analysts are already impressed—and there’s more to come in 2026.
Regulatory uncertainty is no longer background noise. It is a material investment risk that reshapes how capital is deployed and pipelines are prioritized.
An analysis finds that pharmas frequently file multiple similar patents on drugs, then use them as the basis for questionable litigation against would-be competitors.
Disc Medicine’s leadership tried to express optimism that its rare disease therapy bitopertin can be approved based on a Phase 3 trial set to begin shortly. However, analysts are worried that the protocol was developed with former FDA leaders.
Evidence of durability of psilocybin-based COMP360 is a key point for the FDA, according to Compass Pathways Chief Medical Officer Guy Goodwin. By providing 26 weeks’ worth of such data instead of the requested 12, the company is delivering “in spades,” he said.
Competing with giants like Takeda and Moderna, the plucky biotech believes it has unlocked a future with an easy, yearly oral vaccine.
Following the successful late-stage study in wet age-related macular degeneration, Ocular plans to meet with the FDA to determine a regulatory path for Axpaxli.
Johns Hopkins’ Thomas Hartung discusses how drug discovery and development will change under evolving regulatory policies that embrace AI technology as well as organoid and other non-animal models of human biology.