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New guidelines from two leading medical associations suggest that efforts to reduce bad cholesterol should focus on maintaining low levels of two key lipoproteins. Big pharma is all in, looking to improve on the standard statins to help vanquish America’s number one killer: heart disease.
The FDA’s decision last year to make complete response letters public provides new insight into why therapies sometimes fail to get the regulatory greenlight. Analysts say the information could help sponsors refine their regulatory strategies.
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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FDA
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health department has consistently touted radical transparency as being key to its mission. Recent instances—the FDA’s decision not to disclose the recipients of three Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers and FDA and CDC choices not to publish vaccine-related papers—call this intent into question.
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Disruptive conditions are typical in non-Western markets. The U.S. industry, thrown into a period of significant change as the Trump administration overhauls HHS and considers implementing tariffs, could learn a thing or two by looking overseas.
Dupixent, which was rejected by the FDA for chronic spontaneous urticaria in October 2023, is now approved as the first new targeted therapy for the indication in more than 10 years.
President Donald Trump in February threatened top pharma leaders, including Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, with tariffs unless they reshore their manufacturing operations.
FDA
In an interview with former Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary introduced a new mechanism-driven pathway that could be leveraged by rare disease therapies while saying that autism could potentially be driven by certain environmental factors.
BML Capital Management, an activist investor that owns 9.9% of Elevation’s shares, is urging the company to wind down operations given “the current state of the public equity market.”
Alis Biosciences’ plan is a familiar tactic in the private equity world, but the firm will instead be listed on the public markets “in due course.”
FDA
Losing the FDA’s senior negotiators would slow the renewal of the user fee programs “considerably,” according to policy and regulatory expert Steven Grossman.
FDA
Industry representatives will still be allowed at these meetings, but they will no longer have a spot on the advisory committee.
Like they say about the weather in Iceland, if you don’t like an action taken by the new administration, wait five minutes; it’ll probably change. The markets, it seems, don’t react kindly to that kind of policymaking.
With tariffs pushing manufacturing home to the U.S., Pitchbook warns of reduced M&A activity and venture capital funding.