News
A surprising deal from Vertex Pharmaceuticals adds to Big Pharma’s acquisitive streak as Crinetics folds into the cystic fibrosis drugmaker. Meanwhile, IPOs and venture capital raises trend upward, but mostly for derisked companies. Plus, FDA decisions slow only slightly as the hunt for a permanent leader drags on.
FEATURED STORIES
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.
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.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
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.
THE LATEST
Yuviwel will compete with BioMarin’s Voxzogo. Meanwhile, BridgeBio is working to bring its own achondroplasia drug, the FGFR3 blocker infigratinib, to the market.
One of the two new members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines before the Texas Senate in 2021.
A combination of Merck’s Keytruda and Pfizer’s Padcev could offer a chemotherapy-free treatment alternative for patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer, even those eligible for cisplatin treatment.
On the FDA’s docket this month are two decisions pushed back from 2025, including one for a rare form of obesity and another for dry eye disease.
The CDC’s changes threaten to cut vaccine sales for makers including Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and more, but a legal expert suspects affected manufacturers will stay on the sidelines rather than back a push to declare the revised schedule unlawful.
This week’s Capitol Hill meetings come on the heels of rejections of ultra-rare disease drugs developed by Biohaven and Saol Therapeutics. Physicians and patient groups implored the FDA to expedite these treatments.
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary presented a new idea to staff this week: bonus payments for employees that complete regulatory review processes faster than expected.
Hernexeos is the second drug to secure an FDA approval under the agency’s priority voucher scheme, following in the footsteps of USAntibiotics’ Augmentin XR, which was granted the ticket in December 2025.
Aside from creating a toxic work environment, CBER Director Vinay Prasad has also been accused of berating his staff and retaliating against reviewers who questioned his decisions.
Without naming a specific product, Commissioner Marty Makary referred to an investigational therapy, delivered surgically into the brain, that the FDA was “pressured” to approve even after finding no clinical benefit to patients.