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With the latest round, Roche’s Genentech will have racked up nearly 450 layoffs in California over the last year amid ongoing restructuring. At the same time, the biotech is joining forces with Astex Pharmaceuticals in a deal that could surpass $490 million.
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FDA
Significant leadership instability at the FDA—compounded by continued workforce attrition—led to a slight slowdown in overall regulatory productivity in the first half of this year, but the agency has been catching up of late.
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.
The total of 52 mergers and acquisitions for the first half of 2026 reflects what analysts, industry watchers and executives are saying over and over: M&A is back.
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If cell and gene therapy makers are going to achieve their mission to improve patients’ lives, the industry must come together to share information across stakeholders, from regulators to manufacturers to payers.
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Before garnering approval on Tuesday, Onapgo had been rejected twice by the FDA.
Despite significant dips in its vaccines sales, the British pharma narrowly beat consensus estimates for Q4 2024 and raised 2031 sales projections to just over $50 billion.
Amgen outperformed expectations in the fourth quarter of 2024, but revealed an FDA hold on early-stage obesity asset AMG 513 and the discontinuation of other programs.
Of the 102 company launches or series A financings since October 2023, just nine had a woman at the helm, according to a BioSpace analysis. This is happening in an era of biotech where new company founders are searching for CEOs with a track record.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS nomination moves to a full Senate vote; Donald Trump’s tariff war sparks China-related concerns for biopharma; Pfizer, Merck and more announce Q4 and 2024 earnings; and the non-opioid painkiller space heats up as FDA approves Vertex’s Jounavx.
At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, the Biotech CEO Sisterhood assembled in Union Square to showcase the large group of women and allies in biopharma as their authentic selves.
Faced with the encroaching threats of patent expirations and generics, biopharma companies in 2024 invested 33% more in licensing deals, on average, than in 2023 with an eye toward enriching their pipelines with novel and potentially more effective therapies.
M&A was already on the upswing in 2024, and the new Trump administration may support that trend. But if data aren’t handled properly, acquisitions won’t reach their full potential.
With just one asset in weight loss moving through the clinic, Pfizer targets the space for potential dealmaking, as well as bringing assets over from China.
Senator Bill Cassidy voted with fellow Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday morning to move forward the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for HHS secretary.