News

The White House is clamping down on pharma’s ability to buy new molecules from Chinese biotechs; Sanofi, Merck and others abandon the U.K. after the introduction of a sizeable levy; Novo CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar lays off 9,000 while the company presents new data at EASD; Capsida loses a patient in a gene therapy trial; and CDER Director George Tidmarsh walks back comments on FDA adcomms.
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Drug pricing, budget cuts, tariffs and other shifts under the Trump administration undermine the biopharma and healthcare ecosystem.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes an exemption for orphan drugs for a single indication, but experts say this is far from sufficient to maintain momentum in the rare disease space.
In advance of this week’s CDC vaccine advisory meeting, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. restacked the committee, claiming problematic industry ties within the previous group. Experts say ACIP had long navigated COIs appropriately and that the new appointees risk the apolitical nature of membership.
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Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, reported its financial results for the first quarter ended March 30, 2024.
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Unpredictable communication and a lack of transparency are eroding the industry’s and the public’s trust. The FDA, experts agree, needs to take control of the narrative.
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The FDA has postponed its decision date for Regenxbio’s Hunter syndrome gene therapy to review additional longer-term clinical data for the asset.
Adaptive and Genentech first partnered in 2018 to advance T cell receptor-based therapies for cancer.
VantAI will use its machine learning capabilities to identify novel target-effector pairs that Halda can use in designing its bifunctional small-molecule drugs.
While the 10-fold increase in dose over injectable Wegovy has raised questions about the launch, Novo Nordisk has assured investors it has the manufacturing capacity to roll out oral semaglutide without restrictions on supply.
FDA
A draft copy of the Make America Healthy Again Commission’s latest report, obtained by Politico, focuses on vaccine-related injuries and expediting access to investigational medicines for children—even though the FDA has recently rejected several of them.
Waltham, Massachusetts–based Skyhawk Therapeutics has been collecting collaborations with larger companies in spades since launching in 2018.
Patients who are prescribed Wegovy or Ozempic can now use GoodRx to access the medications at just $499 a month if they skip insurance. This is not the first time Novo has partnered with a pharmacy to offer the blockbuster drugs.
Inclacumab, which Pfizer obtained in its 2022 acquisition of Global Blood Therapeutics, failed to significantly lower pain episodes in patients with sickle cell disease over the 48-week treatment period.
Kriya is advancing a host of gene therapies for a wide variety of chronic diseases, including geographic atrophy, trigeminal neuralgia and type 1 diabetes.
In Phase III studies, Tonmya showed significantly superior analgesic effects in patients with fibromyalgia versus placebo. The sublingual pill also led to better clinical outcomes.