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The Denton site is part of a network of manufacturing plants Novartis is building across the U.S. to make cancer drugs that must be shipped to patients quickly.
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IPO
LB Pharma needed $350 million to advance a promising schizophrenia candidate at a time when the biotech markets were locked up tight. Fortunately, it wasn’t CEO Heather Turner’s first rodeo.
Rare disease drug developers struggle to survive in a biopharma investment market that prioritizes large patient populations. Initiatives like the Orphan Therapeutics Accelerator are attempting to solve what CEO Craig Martin says is not a science problem, but a math problem.
Eli Lilly’s win in a head-to-head trial drove Novo Nordisk’s market cap to pre-Wegovy levels not long after the victor became the first pharma company to top a $1 trillion valuation. It seems one company can do no right, while the other can do no wrong.
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Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
FDA
Following the FDA’s refusal to review Moderna’s investigational mRNA flu vaccine last week, Commissioner Marty Makary faced questions from the U.S. president about the agency’s handling of vaccines. It’s a clear signal that the tension long brewing at the drug regulator has now gone all the way to the top.
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The report comes just two days after Novartis announced its own Parkinson’s drug failure.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ investigational non-opioid analgesic suzetrigine failed to outperform placebo. Investors voiced their concerns as the company’s share price fell 13% in premarket trading.
The approval concludes what has been a difficult regulatory path for Ryoncil, which suffered FDA rejections in 2020 and 2023.
According to the World Health Organization, GLP-1 receptor agonists are currently being used in a highly medicalized manner. Healthcare systems need to enact more holistic solutions, focusing on health promotion, disease prevention and policy interventions.
While layoffs have slowed in the second half of the year, according to BioSpace data, companies including Bayer, Bristol Myers Squibb and Johnson & Johnson are cutting hundreds or even thousands of employees in 2024.
Following an appeal by the Danish Medicines Agency, the European Union’s drug regulator will review two new studies that have strengthened the link between Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster GLP-1 and a rare eye disease.
Photys is eligible for up to $186 million from Novo Nordisk for its PHICS small molecules that pair a kinase to a disease-causing protein for phosphorylation.
BioSpace Senior Editor Annalee Armstrong reflects on the year that was, and what’s to come in 2025.
Suddenly the hottest thing in biopharma isn’t a new indication, disease target or modality—it’s manufacturing, and all of pharma is going to be vying for capacity and talent.
AbbVie’s blockbuster Humira held 105 patents, shielding the anti-inflammatory drug from biosimilar competition for more than 20 years. Proposed reforms could help prevent companies from extending exclusivity with such patent thickets.