News

After receiving the FDA’s greenlight for Hunter syndrome drug Avlayah, Denali Therapeutics CEO Ryan Watts saw the culmination of 20 years of hard work unraveling the mysteries of the blood-brain barrier.
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At Sarepta Therapeutics, we’ve seen it all. Here are the questions I believe we should be asking to move forward in Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
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.
FDA
After Replimune’s advanced melanoma drug was rejected for a second time, CEO Sushil Patel slammed the FDA for failing to exercise regulatory flexibility, while other experts bemoaned the agency’s lack of consistency. With new safety guidelines for gene editing therapies, the FDA has taken a first step toward fixing both problems.
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Novo Nordisk’s oral Wegovy has a few months’ head start on Eli Lilly’s newly approved pill. While the Indianapolis pharma has come from behind the Danish rival in the weight loss space before, last time it clearly had the better drug.
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Instead of joining the increasingly crowded GLP-1 arena, GSK will focus its efforts downstream of obesity—a push currently anchored by its Phase III-ready FGF21 analog efimosfermin alfa for liver fibrosis.
FDA
Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts said the Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program did not receive congressional backing. The FDA has also not yet made disclosures for eight senior reviewers, according to Auchincloss.
Mounjaro and Zepbound combined for $11.7 billion in the fourth quarter, which beat analyst consensus of $10.6 billion.
Novartis will still be on the lookout for early-stage deals under $2 billion, and later-stage agreements around a product that could reach the market within five years, CEO Vas Narasimhan said Wednesday.
Pfizer announces the first data from its Metsera-acquired pipeline just ahead of its earnings call, where analysts pressed execs for more details; Merck and Roche also released Q4 and full year earnings, with Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and others reporting Wednesday; REGENXBIO hits a regulatory snag ahead of its upcoming PDUFA; more.
Investor enthusiasm and evolving FDA pathways are accelerating rare disease drug development, with ultrarare conditions like MPS II moving into the spotlight.
IPO
Nearly 100 biotechs went public amid the industry’s IPO frenzy in 2021, driven by an influx of pandemic-driven investments. But many of those companies have little to show investors.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a spending package into law Tuesday that reauthorizes the FDA’s previously stalled rare pediatric disease priority review voucher program, among other initiatives, while ending a three-day partial government shutdown.
Novo Nordisk beat analyst expectations for the fourth quarter, but the result was overshadowed by softened expectations for this year.
Analysts parsed the limited data available for Pfizer’s obesity candidate on the pharma’s fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday, looking for any nugget of additional context.