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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.
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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.
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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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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Generate:Biomedicines has hit the public markets as the world begins to question the usefulness of AI technology. CEO Mike Nally says biology is the key to unlocking the technology’s full potential.
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.