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.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
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
Last month, Vertex said sickle cell patients had not yet received infusions of its gene therapy Casgevy. That’s now changed, as the company races with bluebird bio’s Lyfgenia.
Despite meeting the primary endpoint in a Phase III study, two patients treated with Merck and Daiichi Sankyo’s experimental antibody-drug conjugate died in a Phase III non-small cell lung cancer study, though the deaths have not been linked to patritumab deruxtecan.
In metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, a retrospective analysis shows that patients on GLP-1 receptor agonists are 14% less likely to progress to cirrhosis.
Boehringer Ingelheim’s investigational compound nerandomilast, which targets the PDE4B enzyme involved in fibrosis and inflammation in the lungs, met its primary endpoint in a late-stage study.
RSV
The newly approved filling line will be able to provide both 50-mg and 100-mg doses of the respiratory syncytial virus antibody Beyfortus to help meet demand ahead of the 2024/2025 RSV season.
Bristol Myers Squibb presented the positive Phase III results on its already approved Opdivo-Yervoy combo at ESMO over the weekend, while separately announcing that it was returning Immatics’ bispecific T cell engager.
Friday’s approval comes after a previous rejection in October 2023 due to manufacturing concerns.
The result comes months after an FDA advisory committee flagged the risk of potential overtreatment with perioperative regimens.

High response rates reported by GSK and iTeos at the 2024 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress offer a ray of light for anti-TIGIT therapies after a string of failures.
ALS
Launched in 2020 to more quickly bring to market an effective medicine for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the HEALEY Platform Trial has generated disappointing results for many but also continuing programs from Clene and Prilenia.