News

The obesity market and Most Favored Nation drug pricing were among the topics de jour at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference last week, while smaller biotechs sought to assure investors that their regulatory ducks are in a row; Novo Nordisk’s oral obesity pill got off to a hot start while the FDA delayed a decision on Eli Lilly’s investigational offering; and SpyGlass Pharma and AgomAb Therapeutics join the 2026 IPO club.
FEATURED STORIES
Henry Gosebruch, who has $3.5 billion in capital to deploy, is thinking broad as he steers the decades-old biotech out of years of turmoil. 
Following the hard-won success of early anti-amyloid drugs, a new generation of Alzheimer’s modalities—from tau-targeting gene silencers to blood-brain barrier delivery platforms—is entering the pipeline to anchor future combination therapies.
Speaking on the sidelines of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Novo business development executive Tamara Darsow said the company is gunning for obesity and diabetes assets.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
It doesn’t matter how many times you have traversed Union Square; no one knows which way is north, or where The Westin is in relation to the Ritz Carlton. A Verizon outage brought that into focus on Wednesday.
THE LATEST
Analysts expect the companies’ Vabysmo and Eylea HD to generate a combined $13.2 billion by 2030 in the vascular endothelial growth A therapy market, as healthcare providers and patients switch from older products.
Astellas Gene Therapies is closing its San Francisco biomanufacturing facility, shifting gene therapy manufacturing to North Carolina, cutting at least 17 employees and affecting dozens more.
Bayer’s Kerendia, at the center of a $3 billion sales forecast, reduced the risk of cardiovascular death and heart failure in a Phase III trial.
The highly anticipated results come as the company makes significant changes to its C-suite. Despite the turnover, Dyne said it is looking toward expedited approval pathways for its DMD treatment.
The BTK inhibitor showed promise in non-relapsing secondary progressive multiple sclerosis but not relapsing MS. The company said it plans to apply for approval for the former “as soon as possible.”
Novo Nordisk’s continuing supply problems for semaglutide come as the pharma tries to expand the drug’s indication, opening it up to more patients—and potentially to heavier production pressures.
Unlike Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, Novavax does not use mRNA technology for its COVID-19 vaccine, instead opting for a recombinant version of the virus’ spike protein to elicit protection.
FDA
The agency’s inertia and bureaucratic roadblocks are throttling hope for millions of patients. A new center of excellence would provide a solution.
With promising early results, cell and gene therapies are making headway against both rare and common ocular and auditory diseases.
The FDA has three regulatory milestones in the next two weeks, including a decision on a subcutaneous formulation of an effective multiple sclerosis therapy.