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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.
THE LATEST
Two Florida courts have sided with Novo Nordisk against Ekzotika and Effinger Health, agreeing that their compounded versions of semaglutide are against the law. The Danish pharma has reached confidential settlements with both companies.
Madrigal Pharmaceuticals announced late-stage results published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine for resmetirom as it awaits a March 14 PDUFA date.
Biopharma’s latest earnings season was, in a word, predictable. Companies are consistently beating Wall Street earnings and revenue estimates as they set low expectations for investors.
Despite not having a single candidate in the clinical stage, the Moderna-backed biotech is offering 6.25 million shares for $15 apiece in an initial public offering. Shares are expected to begin trading Friday.
The CEOs of BMS, J&J and Merck testified Thursday before the Senate health committee that pharmacy benefit managers bear much of the blame for high pricing, while declining to commit to price cuts.
Following promising Phase IIb studies, Takeda will advance its oral ORX2 agonist TAK-861 into Phase III studies for narcolepsy type 1, while nixing the candidate’s development in narcolepsy type 2.
Investors drove up the price of Kyverna Therapeutics’ stock by 59% in its initial public offering on Thursday afternoon, the first day of trading, reaching a peak per-share price of $35.01.
Gilead Sciences is ending the development of magrolimab for the treatment of blood cancer following the FDA’s placement of a clinical hold on all its programs related to the drug.
Kyowa Kirin’s dealmaking continued on Wednesday when BridgeBio Pharma granted the Japanese company an exclusive license to develop and commercialize infigratinib.
BioNTech will pay $50 million in cash and purchase $200 million of Autolus Therapeutics’ shares to progress the companies’ respective CAR-T candidates to commercialization.