News

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.
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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.
The Merck update, which will shed light on a $588 million bet to succeed Keytruda, is part of a roster of presentations that could shape the future of ADCs, protein degraders and KRAS-targeted therapies.
Gilead, AstraZeneca and Vertex have acquired more than just a therapeutic asset in recent deals. BioSpace takes a look at five recent transactions where the staff was the real centerpiece.
Job Trends
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Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
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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With fresh billions unlocked in the 2026 U.S. budget and mission‑driven family offices recalibrating after a “nuclear winter,” early stage biotechs are rewriting their financing strategies around nondilutive capital and targeted private wealth.
Employees are reassessing, leaders are celebrating data that should make them nervous and job seekers are absorbing a narrative that doesn’t match their reality. Executive coach Angela Justice discusses how each of these groups are affected when the job market thaws.
Merck’s Keytruda will soon lose exclusivity, just as weight-loss giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk press in with their blockbuster GLP-1s.
Poplar Therapeutics is seeking a “step change” in the treatment of food allergy and other atopic conditions, with $95 million raised to date, including a $45 million series A extension that closed Tuesday.
OSE Immunotherapeutics has kicked off a strategic realignment initiative that involves deprioritizing the AbbVie-partnered OSE-230 and focusing its resources on the late-stage development of its ulcerative colitis candidate lusvertikimab.
The FDA last October paused Intellia Therapeutics’ late-stage CRISPR studies after detecting life-threatening enzyme elevations in one patient, who died a few days later.
In a complete response letter published by the FDA on Monday, the agency said a resubmission for REGENXBIO’s Hunter syndrome gene therapy should provide evidence of normalized or improved biomarker levels or neurodevelopmental outcomes.
Infrastructure and location have helped make Holly Springs a future hub for obesity drug production, with Amgen and Roche planning to manufacture GLP-1 therapies there to compete in the growing market.
Here’s how drug developers can best approach interactions with the agency following last year’s seismic changes to its leadership, workforce and policies.
FDA
FDA decisions lack majority consensus, experts agree, possibly leading to less nuanced verdicts on new drug applications. This type of “fiat” decision-making, as multiple regulatory experts have called it, is also bleeding into the agency’s policymaking.