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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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A Phase III readout in September 2024 for rocatinlimab, on which Amgen and Kyowa Kirin were collaborating in atopic dermatitis, appeared underwhelming to analysts, with Jefferies noting that the data “came in at the lower end of efficacy and expectations.”
Opening up about drug pricing decisions is not optional for biopharma anymore. For the sake of credibility, companies should embrace it.
AstraZeneca’s $15 billion pledge to its China operations highlights the country’s advantages. But other regions are also hoping to host more clinical studies.
In what is shaping up to be a back-loaded month, the FDA is set to release a slew of regulatory decisions in February, including two that would expand the labels of blockbuster drugs.
With Lykos’ regulatory failure now squarely in the rearview mirror, Compass Pathways and Definium are leading what one analyst suspects will be “a very big year for psychedelics.”
The Senate failed to pass a massive spending bill on Thursday—which includes the rare pediatric PRV program but also funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s large-scale crackdown in Minnesota and other states.
New draft guidance from the FDA on multiple myeloma endpoints reflects the new technology available to assess disease and how patient journeys have changed with better treatments.
In a Cabinet meeting, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the website could go live “probably in the next 10 days,” but an exact launch date remains unclear.
Moderna will continue to lead clinical development and manufacturing of the asset, while Recordati will handle commercialization of mRNA-3927, which is under development for the rare metabolic disorder propionic acidemia.
The pact, which could see AstraZeneca ultimately put out $18.5 billion in milestones and sales-based payments, is centered on SYH2082, a long-acting dual agonist of the GLP-1 and GIP receptors.