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IPO
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.
FEATURED STORIES
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.
FDA
Significant leadership instability at the FDA—compounded by continued workforce attrition—led to a slight slowdown in overall regulatory productivity in the first half of this year, but the agency has been catching up of late.
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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If cell and gene therapy makers are going to achieve their mission to improve patients’ lives, the industry must come together to share information across stakeholders, from regulators to manufacturers to payers.
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The two mid-stage flops—one in major depressive disorder and another in focal onset seizures—involve drug candidates from partnerships with Xenon Pharmaceuticals and Takeda, respectively.
FDA
The biopharma’s Adzynma, a human recombinant ADAMST13 therapeutic, is the first approved therapy for the ultra-rare clotting disorder congenital thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura.
Over the next two weeks, the FDA is set to decide on New Drug Applications from Pacira, CorMedix and Aldeyra and hold an advisory committee meeting for two overdue confirmatory trials from Acrotech.
The Federal Trade Commission is challenging over 100 pharmaceutical patents held by prominent drugmakers, including AbbVie, AstraZeneca and Boehringer Ingelheim, for their listings.
As Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics await the monumental potential approval of exa-cel, bluebird bio, Iovance and Rocket Pharmaceuticals wait patiently in the wings.
While the biotech’s third-quarter revenue beat Wall Street expectations, its $7.3 billion acquisition of Reata Pharmaceuticals—which closed in September—negatively impacted 2023 per-share earnings.
The vaccine maker is prepared to cut another $300 million in operating expenses in 2024 to keep the company afloat as it works to get its combination COVID-19/flu vaccine into Phase III.
In a bid to join Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk in the lucrative, high-growth obesity market, AstraZeneca is investing in a Phase I oral GLP-1RA candidate from Shanghai-based biotech Eccogene.
FDA
The oral targeted therapy, now sold under the brand name Fruzaqla, is approved for adults with metastatic colorectal cancer who have received certain previous treatments for the disease.
FDA
Lilly’s Zepbound (tirzepatide) injection is the first and only approved treatment that activates two incretin hormone receptors, GIP and GLP-1, to treat obesity and excess weight.