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Fallout from the resignation of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary continues as several other senior regulators are removed from their posts; pharma’s top paid CEOs make up to 358 times more than their employees; Revolution Medicine’s pancreatic cancer results highlight movement in the deadly disease space; more.
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Biotech is increasingly financed, governed and regulated as though it were a mature pharmaceutical industry rather than a discovery system built around scientific uncertainty. Structural changes are needed to sustain the sector’s strategic innovation.
BioSpace examines how the FDA approval of Eli Lilly’s oral obesity drug Foundayo has ignited a key race with Novo Nordisk.
Nusano will bring a massive new radioisotope facility in Salt Lake City online by the end of the year, establishing a supply of starting materials for the next generation of radiopharmaceuticals.
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The Department of Health and Human Services is spinning its wheels, unable to establish steady leadership at three major divisions—the CDC and the FDA’s two primary review units.
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Serial biotech investor Kevin Tang previously unsuccessfully tried to buy Kezar Life Sciences via Concentra Biosciences, a biotech consolidation company owned by the venture capital firm he runs.
Takeda’s layoffs include cutting 247 people in Massachusetts. The workforce reduction is meant to help offset investments in areas including a product launch for oral drug candidate zasocitinib, for which the pharma today announced positive Phase 3 data.
While tonlamarsen missed one of two co-primary endpoints, Kardigan says the drug has shown a clinically meaningful effect on blood pressure, supporting advancement into Phase 2b.
The FDA rejected the high-dose regimen of Spinraza in September last year due to manufacturing concerns.
William Blair hailed a positive readout in cutaneous lupus erythematosus as a turning point for Biogen, while RBC Capital analysts called the results “another derisking step” for the company’s immunology and inflammation pipeline.
The lack of a dose-response effect could be due to the high number of dropouts in the higher-dose Winrevair arm and the relatively small study population, a discussant for Merck explained.
The Insilico Medicine agreement plays into Eli Lilly’s recent AI push, anchored by a partnership last year with NVIDIA to build a supercomputer to optimize drug discovery and shorten the development timeline.
AbbVie’s Skyrizi appears to have stronger efficacy than Johnson & Johnson’s newly approved pill Icotyde, as well as a less frequent dosing schedule that patients could prefer, according to analysts at BMO Capital Markets.
The FDA has some big verdicts lined up in the second quarter, including one for a closely watched obesity drug that many anticipate will further intensify competition in weight loss.
Accumulating scientific evidence and industry interest from Eli Lilly, Altimmune and startup Baseline Therapeutics is driving further research on the therapeutic potential of GLP-1 receptor agonists in treating substance use disorders.