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FDA
The FDA has expanded the regulatory toolkit during President Donald Trump’s second term, adding new mechanisms for rare diseases while putting the Biden-era platform technology designation into action.
FDA
As the FDA tries to clarify its intent for former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary’s plausible mechanism framework for bespoke therapies, experts emphasize the importance of expanding its scope to encompass rare diseases that affect more than just one or a few individuals.
Analysts and investors were unimpressed by Phase 2 data posted in the spring showing that an amylin analog developed by Roche and partner Zealand Pharma elicited 9% weight loss, less than Eli Lilly’s rival candidate. Executives from both companies told BioSpace that premium weight loss is not the point of petrelintide.
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FDA veteran Peter Marks will now shape the future of Eli Lilly’s vaccines work after the buys of Curevo, LimmaTech Biologics and Vaccine Company for up to $3.8 billion total.
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Doubling survival in pancreatic cancer, a long-fought rare disease approval, a massive IPO and ambitious biotech entrepreneurs have BioSpace Senior Editor Annalee Armstrong feeling upbeat about the biotech scene.
After entering the CAR T space in February, Eli Lilly is “jumping into in vivo CAR-T with both feet” with the acquisition of Kelonia Therapeutics and its gene delivery technology.
An investigational cocktail was tied to a 0% overall response rate in patients with gastroesophageal cancer, but developers Agenus and MiNK Therapeutics aren’t giving up on the program just yet.
Novo Nordisk’s etavopivat elicited a 27% drop in vaso-occlusive crises and 48.7% hemoglobin response after 24 weeks, creating “separation amongst PK class candidates,” Truist analysts said on Monday. Novo plans to seek FDA approval in the back half of 2026.
While Merck’s PD-1/VEGF asset appears to match the performance of Summit Therapeutics’ ivonescimab, the pharma’s Phase 1/2 readout in non-small cell lung cancer still leaves analysts with some questions moving into later-stage development.
The acquisition of Neurona will put UCB in both the epilepsy and cell therapy space, even as many of its fellow pharmas move away from the latter modality.
A new executive order could usher in psychedelics as the “key next wave” of mental health therapies, according to analysts at RBC Capital Markets.
While Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy pill reached more than 3,000 patients in its first week on the market, analysts at RBC Capital Markets said a direct comparison of the two figures could be misleading given the shorter data collection time for Foundayo.
IPO
Obesity-focused Kailera Therapeutics debuted on the Nasdaq Friday after raising a record $625 million, beating Moderna’s $600 million from 2018.
The pharma industry “own Congress, they own the media,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. told lawmakers by way of explaining the bad press against FDA Commissioner Marty Makary following the second rejection of Replimune’s advanced melanoma drug.