News

The failure of Roche’s Ionis-partnered tominersen in Huntington’s disease may indicate that Wave Life Sciences’ allele-specific antisense oligonucleotide candidate WVE-003 is on the right track, according to analysts at Rodman & Renshaw.
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The lineup at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference will provide critical insight into where the industry is headed with regard to targets being explored to vanquish the elusive neurodegenerative disease.
Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are pushing for the withdrawal of the rare disease treatment that accounted for just 1% of Amgen’s 2025 revenue. Nevertheless, Amgen continues to defend the medicine, which was acquired in the $3.7 billion buyout of ChemoCentryx.
Psychedelics are gaining momentum in depression, with one treating physician predicting that the drug class could “wipe out the SSRIs” if safety and durability hold up.
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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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FDA
Loqtorzi is the first programmed death receptor-1 from China to be approved by the U.S. regulator, and the first for patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma across all lines of treatment.
In a briefing document for Tuesday’s advisory committee meeting, the FDA raised concerns about the potential off-target effects of Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics’ investigational gene edited therapy.
The Japanese pharma’s attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder candidate has shown significant symptom improvements in children and adolescents in two late-stage studies.
Merck and Novartis beat expectations this week with solid third-quarter financial results, while BMS, Sanofi and Takeda spooked investors with negative near- and mid-term projections.
The French drugmaker’s shares dropped more than 15% Friday morning on the announcement that it has abandoned its goal of a 32% operating profit margin for 2025, focusing on long-term profitability.
FDA
Following an FDA rejection and a previous discontinuation in psoriasis, Eli Lilly’s anti-IL-23 antibody has finally won an approval in ulcerative colitis, joining a crowded inflammatory bowel disease market.
The company’s blockbuster cancer asset Keytruda brought in more than $6.3 billion in the third quarter, a 17% increase from the same period last year, while bolstering its antibody-drug conjugate portfolio.
FDA
Santhera Pharmaceuticals and partner Catalyst Pharmaceuticals got the FDA’s greenlight for their Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug Agamree, which is expected to launch in the first quarter of 2024.
The company on Thursday said it now expects more than $10 billion in new product sales in 2026, despite previously forecasting $10 billion to $13 billion in 2025.
With recent high-profile failures, experts say safety concerns and a lack of diversification are hindering the field—but still hold out hope for an approval.