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Molecular glue degraders are gaining traction in the clinic as well as funding from Big Pharma, with their potential to treat previously “undruggable” cancers and immunological diseases. Here are five clinical programs worth keeping an eye on.
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.
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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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After 27 years in business, Cytokinetics hopes to pit its own cardiac myosin inhibitor against one it initially developed—now owned by Bristol Myers Squibb—in a market worth billions. Aficamten has a PDUFA date of Dec. 26.
Insmed pointed to a strong placebo response as the reason for the trial’s failure.
With zasocitinib, Takeda is looking to challenge Bristol Myers Squibb’s kinase inhibitor Sotyktu, for which the Japanese pharma is running a head-to-head study in plaque psoriasis. Takeda expects to file for zasocitinib’s FDA approval next year.
The filing comes as Novo fights tooth-and-nail with rival Lilly to regain its footing at the top of the weight loss market.
In this episode of Denatured, Jennifer Smith-Parker speaks to Kenneth Galbraith, CEO of Zymeworks and Josh Smiley, president and COO of Zai Lab, about how renewed confidence is driving biotech entering 2026.
The money replaces a small portion of a contract Moderna lost when the Department of Health and Human Services canceled $760 million in backing to develop the vaccine, called mRNA-1018.
Participants in a Phase III trial who switched to Eli Lilly’s orforglipron after 72 weeks of treatment with Wegovy or Zepbound largely maintained their weight loss for up to a year.
The tickets could go to the lipid-lowering pill enlicitide decanoate and the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab tirumotecan, though a spokesperson for the HHS did not confirm the news.
Novartis has discontinued two undisclosed programs under its current partership with Voyager, the biotech announced last month. Projects under the deal for spinal muscular atrophy and Huntington’s disease continue to advance.
The Massachusetts biotech will also be eligible to milestone payments, though the exact amount has yet to be disclosed.