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Replimune is axing 144 employees at its Woburn headquarters and 80 at its Framingham manufacturing site. The cuts follow the FDA’s second rejection of the biotech’s advanced melanoma candidate.
FEATURED STORIES
Doubling survival in pancreatic cancer, a long-fought rare disease approval, a massive IPO and ambitious biotech entrepreneurs have BioSpace Senior Editor Annalee Armstrong feeling upbeat about the biotech scene.
FDA
After Replimune’s advanced melanoma drug was rejected for a second time, CEO Sushil Patel slammed the FDA for failing to exercise regulatory flexibility, while other experts bemoaned the agency’s lack of consistency. With new safety guidelines for gene editing therapies, the FDA has taken a first step toward fixing both problems.
The Merck update, which will shed light on a $588 million bet to succeed Keytruda, is part of a roster of presentations that could shape the future of ADCs, protein degraders and KRAS-targeted therapies.
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FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
Novo Nordisk’s oral Wegovy has a few months’ head start on Eli Lilly’s newly approved pill. While the Indianapolis pharma has come from behind the Danish rival in the weight loss space before, last time it clearly had the better drug.
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SpringWorks Therapeutics is the perfect case study for rescuing a discontinued assets. It’s time to repeat the process for every rare disease, experts say.
As FDA seeks to rehire some fired employees, Donald Trump threatens to enact tariffs on pharma companies unless they reshore manufacturing; another lawsuit hits the complex GLP-1 compounding space as Eli Lilly offers expanded Zepbound options; and struggling gene therapy biotech bluebird bio goes private in an attempt to stay solvent.
While many industry players and observers have high hopes for the EPIC Act, some say budgetary headwinds could make it difficult for the current administration to make meaningful repeals or amendments to the IRA.
Kiniksa will now focus its development efforts on the IL-1 blocker KPL-387, which it is testing for recurrent pericarditis with Phase II/III trials planned for mid-2025.
Emalex is gearing up for a New Drug Application for ecopipam in Tourette syndrome later this year.
The latest Repare Therapeutics layoffs will include its chief medical officer and could leave the biotech with fewer than 35 employees as it works to advance two Phase I clinical programs.
BridGene strikes another partnership with Takeda as the latter company continues its dealmaking streak, following high-ticket agreements with Keros Therapeutics, AC Immune and Degron Therapeutics in the past nine months.
At the 2025 National Biotechnology Conference, gene therapies, bispecific antibodies and other novel modalities—relative newcomers to medicine—will be much discussed. In this curtain raiser, BioSpace speaks with conference chair Prathap Nagaraja Shastri of J&J about these highly anticipated topics.
The Outsourcing Facilities Association, a trade group representing compounders, filed a similar lawsuit in October last year after the FDA formally ended the tirzepaptide shortage.
Samsung Bioepis allegedly entered into an agreement with a third-party health company, allowing it to market its own private label of a Stelara biosimilar.