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New guidelines from two leading medical associations suggest that efforts to reduce bad cholesterol should focus on maintaining low levels of two key lipoproteins. Big pharma is all in, looking to improve on the standard statins to help vanquish America’s number one killer: heart disease.
The FDA’s decision last year to make complete response letters public provides new insight into why therapies sometimes fail to get the regulatory greenlight. Analysts say the information could help sponsors refine their regulatory strategies.
The Department of Health and Human Services is spinning its wheels, unable to establish steady leadership at three major divisions—the CDC and the FDA’s two primary review units.
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Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
FDA
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health department has consistently touted radical transparency as being key to its mission. Recent instances—the FDA’s decision not to disclose the recipients of three Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers and FDA and CDC choices not to publish vaccine-related papers—call this intent into question.
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IPO
Odyssey filed for an IPO in January but never revealed a fundraising target.
RSV
Merck’s Enflonsia will go up against Sanofi and AstraZeneca’s Beyfortus, which the partners plan to ship out early in the third quarter.
The reinstatement of the generic drug policy office is the latest reversal of course for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s HHS, which also recently rehired FDA staff responsible for making travel arrangements and those involved in user fee program negotiations.
Two weeks of upheaval at the CDC culminated Monday in the complete reconstitution of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pens op-ed criticizing “conflicts of interest” he says exist on the current committee.
Avidity has been given the go-ahead by the FDA to request accelerated approval of delpacibart braxlosiran—potentially the first disease-modifying treatment for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy—with an application in the second half of 2026.
The loss of special government employee status for four members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices follows the resignation of ACIP co-lead Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, who left in protest of a controversial change in COVID-19 recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women.
After a major shareholder pushed back, Keros is returning half of its capital to investors in a move that Guggenheim analysts called “a positive step forward.”
Merck’s enlicitide decanoate significantly lowered low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in two Phase III trials, unlocking what BMO Capital Markets called a “multi-billion dollar opportunity” for the pharma.
In what Guggenheim Partners called one of Metsera’s “critical program milestones” this year, its ultra-long-acting amylin injection MET-233i showed promising weight-loss after a little more than a month of treatment.
Empaveli reduced proteinuria by 68% versus placebo in glomerulopathy and glomerulonephritis, an effect that was sustained through one year of follow-up.