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The FDA greenlit 26 novel therapies in the first half of 2026, including four for cancer and six for orphan indications. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca and Johnson and Johnson took home a combined 11 of the agency’s 79 total approvals, including supplemental nods.
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Even as FDA approvals for biologic therapies fell in the first half of 2026, regulatory experts are optimistic about a turnaround in the rare disease space after the departure of key leaders at the agency. Still, there will continue to be tension between science and politics.
Early-stage financing rounds are on track to hit their lowest dollar value in years as funders continue to eschew risky investments, experts told BioSpace.
A mostly black box since emerging with more than a billion dollars in hand, Xaira Therapeutics is slowly pulling back the curtain, revealing plans to find partners and validate its pipeline.
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Congressional letters sent to the CEOs of Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck, BMS and AbbVie this week voicing concerns about the pharmas’ clinical trials in China highlight an ongoing discrepancy in how government and industry think about the rise of the Asian country’s biotech industry.
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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.
The label expansion could help Novo Nordisk “help shift the momentum” for Wegovy, after a difficult start to 2025, according to analysts at BMO Capital Markets.
BioSpace data show biopharma professionals faced increased competition for fewer employment opportunities during the second quarter of 2025, with increased pressure from further layoffs.
Papzimeos is the first immunotherapy approved for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, a rare lung disorder involving the development of benign tumors in the airways.
The move comes after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received pressure from the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine non-profit that he co-founded, which last month sued him over his failure to run the “statutorily required Task Force on childhood vaccine,” according to the lawsuit.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ mRNA pullback only applies to their use in upper respiratory disease, according to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
As Trump has pressured drugmakers to lower the cost of medicines in the U.S., the pharma industry has coalesced behind a message of rebalancing what nations pay to better reflect the innovation and value of drugmaking.
The Boston-based AI/ML startup focuses on endocrine and cardiometabolic diseases and will use that expertise to generate new small molecule obesity medications for Lilly.