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As with recent rejections for Biogen and Scholar Rock, manufacturing issues stymied a regulatory bid from Fortress Biotech and Sentynl Therapeutics. Fortress said the FDA did not flag problems with the drug’s safety or efficacy.
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In the race to make the most tolerable obesity drug, there seems to be no clear winner—at least not according to analysts parsing the data presented at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting this week.
Writing in JAMA, four former government officials warn that the Trump administration’s involvement in delaying the approval of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine could indicate a politicization of the drug approval processes that could ‘imperil public health.’
Leading companies spent $1.4 billion upfront on licensing deals and embarked on vast R&D programs. Clinical setbacks mean many companies are unlikely to ever recoup their investments.
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With five CDER leaders in one year and regulatory proposals coming “by fiat,” the FDA is only making it more difficult to bring therapies to patients.
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BioSpace did a deep dive into biopharma female executives who navigated difficult markets to lead their companies to high-value exits.
AMX0035—approved as Relyvrio in 2022 for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis but voluntarily pulled from the market last year—was unable to distinguish itself from placebo in a mid-to-late-stage trial of progressive supranuclear palsy.
Novartis has bet up to $772 million to gain access to BioArctic’s BrainTransporter platform, which was leveraged in a partnership with Eisai to produce Leqembi.
Regeneron’s cemdisiran, used alone or in combination with its complement inhibitor Veopoz, significantly improved activities of daily living in patients with generalized myasthenia gravis.  
The layoffs will affect employees at Pfizer’s Bothell, Washington site, which previously served as the headquarters for Seagen before being acquired by the pharma for $43 billion.
Eli Lilly drops a second Phase III readout for orforglipron; AbbVie committed to the psychedelic therapeutics space with the $1.2 billion acquisition of Gilgamesh’s depression asset; the CDC taps vaccine skeptic Retsef Levi to lead its COVID-19 immunization working group; and the FDA prioritizes overall survival in cancer drug development.
As the political winds shift on a whim and public distrust of the pharma industry reaches fever pitch over drug pricing, executives are being asked to navigate an impassible path.
Generate:Biomedicines’ Nicole Clouse is one of the key legal minds trying to understand who owns what AI creates. The answers are critical to the future of biotech.
If the trend holds, IQVIA expects 2025 deal volume between Chinese and multinational companies to easily eclipse the 100 agreements signed in 2024.
While Truist Securities analysts said the results from the ATTAIN-2 trial leave “room for competition,” they also pointed to a manufacturing advantage that could unlock a “double-digit billion dollar opportunity” for Eli Lilly.