News

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.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
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
Hit with lower sales of its COVID-19 antiviral Veklury and the weak performance of its HIV franchise, Gilead Sciences reported a 4% year-over-year revenue loss in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Thanks to a rough launch of its Biogen-partnered Alzheimer’s disease treatment, Eisai will likely miss its target of treating 10,000 patients with Leqembi by the end of March 2024.
With manufacturing issues persisting, last year’s shortages of medicines, including chemotherapies, weight-loss drugs and antibiotics, will continue into 2024.
Politics aside, both the government and the pharmaceutical industry want to bring affordable effective therapies to patients. Implementation is the obstacle. Working together is the only way to modify the IRA to do what it intends to do: benefit patients.
The monoclonal antibody Nipocalimab, which J&J acquired from Momenta Therapeutics, met its primary endpoints in mid-stage and late-stage trials in myasthenia gravis and Sjögren’s disease.
The French vaccine maker on Monday said it sold a priority review voucher, which was awarded by the FDA in November 2023 alongside an approval for its chikungunya vaccine, to an undisclosed buyer.
Design patents, trademarks, copyright and trade secrets offer lower cost, and sometimes underappreciated, forms of intellectual property.
Eli Lilly on Tuesday reported more than $9.3 billion in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2023, beating Wall Street expectations, thanks to demand for its weight-loss drug Zepbound and diabetes treatment Mounjaro.
The company’s three-drug combination met all primary and key secondary endpoints in two randomized controlled trials in cystic fibrosis patients, paving the way for an application to regulators.
The antibody-drug conjugate, in combination with Takeda’s Velcade and the steroid dexamethasone, reduced the risk of death and disease progression by 59% versus a similar Darzalex-based regimen.