News

IPO
After debuting on the public markets with $256.3 million and raking in an additional $472 million, Veradermics has emerged as one of biotech’s biggest post-IPO standouts. CEO Reid Waldman credits the weight loss craze for establishing consumer-driven channels.
FEATURED STORIES
Last month, the FDA launched TrialBlazer, intended to streamline the IND path and bring early clinical trials and medical innovation home to the U.S. It’s a start, but new agency leadership must see it through.
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.
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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.
THE LATEST
The public biotech universe has shrunk by more than 20% since 2021, yet financial stress remains entrenched across the sector, according to a report from EY Tuesday.
HIV
While Merck and Gilead Sciences reported back-to-back late-stage victories for their weekly HIV pill, the partners also discontinued a Phase 3 program for their cancer combo after disappointing lung cancer survival data.
AstraZeneca is pushing its small molecule GLP-1 drug to Phase 3 development for weight control, diabetes and other cardiometabolic conditions despite the asset failing to best one from Structure Therapeutics.
Nuvalent Bio is GSK’s third big-ticket purchase this year, after the pharma dropped $2.2 billion in January for RAPT Therapeutics and $950 million in February for 35Pharma.
Newly approved weight loss pill Foundayo reduced blood sugar more than Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide and other comparators in multiple Phase 3 type 2 diabetes trials. Eli Lilly will seek approval in this indication.
City Therapeutics, one of BioSpace’s NextGen companies for 2026, was started by RNA royalty John Maraganore, former CEO of Alnylam.
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly presented data extolling the benefits of their relative weight loss therapies in obesity-linked indications, while analysts at BMO Capital Markets were “encouraged” by the strategy communicated by Novo management.
The acquisition gives Johnson & Johnson access to Firefly Bio’s next-gen platform designed to create degrader antibody conjugates that can crack the tricky KRAS cancer target.
Incyte is acquiring Vega Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Star Therapeutics, for a bleeding disorder program that analysts say has “pipeline-in-a-product” potential.
After Revolution Medicine’s groundbreaking data drop in April, its Tango-partnered combination approach has demonstrated what analysts called “unprecedented” results for 12 patients with pancreatic cancer, teeing up a late-stage study.