News

Biogen’s new data, presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, supports a tau-focused approach to the intractable neurodegenerative disease; psychedelics are back in the news with more positive data from Compass Pathways and final guidance from the FDA; and the ATTR-CM space got a major shakeup with the late-stage failure of AstraZeneca and Ionis’ antisense therapeutic.
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Biopharma is entering its second-quarter earnings season riding high on a wave of massive deals and venture capital flow, plus a clearing of regulatory and policy overhangs. What can industry watchers expect to hear on the upcoming investor calls?
Biogen touted an “unprecedented” drop in tau in a Phase 2 trial, backing the company’s decision to take diranersen to Phase 3 despite a missed primary endpoint and seemingly supporting the anti-tau approach.
As antibody-drug conjugates advance and move into earlier lines of treatment, drug developers have to build gentler therapies that don’t just extend survival but improve it.
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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.
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FDA
With several recent approvals in the space and more on the horizon, BioSpace looks at some of the key decisions and their larger significance both for patients and science.
FDA
Merck’s Winrevair is the second PAH drug to get the FDA’s green light in the past week, following Johnson & Johnson’s Opsynvi, which won approval on Friday.
Health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) is a critical but sometimes overlooked part of drug development. Decentralized trials now make it easy.
Brazil’s Ministry of Health and nonprofit Caring Cross announced a collaboration Tuesday aimed at local manufacturing of CAR-T cell and stem cell gene therapies at a much lower cost than Europe and the U.S.
Stoke Therapeutics reported results for Dravet syndrome studies showing clinically meaningful effects, including reductions in convulsive seizure frequency, supporting the potential for disease modification.
The early-stage study showed that Viking Therapeutics’ oral obesity candidate VK2735, a dual agonist of the GLP-1 and GIP receptors, elicited a 3.3% reduction in mean body weight. The company plans to start a Phase II trial.
FDA
AstraZeneca’s Alexion on Monday secured the fourth indication for Ultomiris, which can now be used to treat the rare autoimmune condition neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder.
Axsome clinched a late-stage victory for its chronic sleep disorder candidate AXS-12, which demonstrated significant improvement in cataplexy—the sudden loss of muscle tone while a person is awake—after five weeks.
The National Institutes of Health claims BioNTech is in default regarding alleged royalty payments the agency contends it is owed in connection with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty.
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