News

Even biopharma’s biggest players have been forced to take a hard look at their businesses and realign their cost structures to cope with the continued and compounding challenges plaguing the industry.
FEATURED STORIES
With drug pricing now embedded in U.S. policy, business development teams in biotech and pharma are changing the way they strike deals, including acknowledging policy uncertainties with renegotiation clauses.
Former FDA, CDC and NIH leaders convene at the BIO International Convention to discuss the dismantling of the Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration—and where we go from here.
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.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
FDA
UniQure’s planned third-quarter submission for its Huntington’s disease gene therapy may be a harbinger of a more flexible FDA under acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas—but how long will it last? And how can companies be sure these positive decisions won’t just be reversed?
THE LATEST
Eli Lilly plans to use BioArctic’s technology to shuttle an undisclosed drug candidate into the brain. The pharma hasn’t specified which neurodegenerative disease it will target.
Insilico Medicine and SK Biopharmaceuticals will use generative AI to develop novel therapies for unspecified neuroimmune disorders.
AbbVie will add Apogee’s IL-23 blocker to its current immunology stalwarts Skyrizi and Rinvoq, which have helped the pharma ride out the steep patent cliff left behind from mega-blockbuster drug Humira.
ALS
Nura Bio will use the series B financing to carry two neuroprotective drug candidates through early- to mid-stage clinical studies, one targeting ALS and the other for a broader neurological profile.
FDA
Denali Therapeutics is the latest company to sell a priority review fast pass for an elevated price after the program was renewed earlier this year.
The U.S. government has argued that it pays too much of biopharma R&D costs, demanding that other high-income countries contribute fairly to global innovation efforts.
The FDA in February briefly refused to review Moderna’s flu vaccine, citing trial inadequacies, but reversed course a few days later. A verdict is expected by Aug. 5.
Memento’s lead asset is a bispecific antibody that blocks VEGF and activates Tie2. The biotech plans to test the candidate in retinal conditions such as neovascular age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema.
While drugmakers and other stakeholders want to see faster approvals, experts say the FDA’s Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program is still bereft of important details, with candidate selection and interference from the agency’s senior leaders topping the list.
FDA
UniQure’s planned third-quarter submission for its Huntington’s disease gene therapy may be a harbinger of a more flexible FDA under acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas—but how long will it last? And how can companies be sure these positive decisions won’t just be reversed?