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IPO
LB Pharma needed $350 million to advance a promising schizophrenia candidate at a time when the biotech markets were locked up tight. Fortunately, it wasn’t CEO Heather Turner’s first rodeo.
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Corsera Health’s Chief Operating Officer Rena Denoncourt and CFO Meredith Kaya speak with BioSpace about the biotech’s mission and vision for the next generation of cardiovascular care.
Billions of dollars’ worth of cancer drugs are discarded each year. Manufacturers must refund Medicare for some of this waste. A data-driven approach offers a practical path to greater efficiency.
Sales of Merck’s longtime oncology blockbuster Keytruda will erode more starkly in about 2033 rather than 2029, predicts Bloomberg Intelligence, translating to some $22 billion more in revenue.
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Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
FDA
Following the FDA’s refusal to review Moderna’s investigational mRNA flu vaccine last week, Commissioner Marty Makary faced questions from the U.S. president about the agency’s handling of vaccines. It’s a clear signal that the tension long brewing at the drug regulator has now gone all the way to the top.
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Ivonescimab elicited better overall survival in Asian patients with non-small cell lung cancer than in those from North America and European countries, in Western countries narrowly missing the statistical significance threshold the FDA is seeking.
KER-0193 is a modulator of ion channels connected to autism spectrum disorder. The FDA bestowed orphan drug and rare pediatric drug designations on the candidate earlier this year.
According to analysts, the new data could present a path to accelerated approval for ifinatamab deruxtecan, a product of Merck and Daiichi Sankyo’s troubled ADC partnership.
The World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines list guides high-level procurement and coverage decisions for over 150 countries.
FDA
New FDA expert panels, such as recent meetings on SSRI use during pregnancy and on hormone replacement therapy during menopause, are drawing criticism for being one-sided. One leader says such panels are designed to reach a specific conclusion.
FDA
Amid an unprecedented turnover in leadership at the FDA and mass layoffs of staff, communication has crumbled and uncertainty runs rampant, leaving small and medium biopharma companies without a clear path forward for their therapies.
Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which founded Lykos, bemoaned a “moving of the goal posts” in Lykos’ rejection but looked for positives in the newly released complete response letter.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated a series of anti-vaccine talking points during his appearance in front of the Senate finance committee on Thursday, as Democratic and Republican senators alike hammered the Health Secretary on recent COVID-19 vaccine restrictions and his views on Operation Warp Speed.
Ousted CDC Director Susan Monarez claimed in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal Thursday that she was fired for refusing to rubber-stamp COVID-19 recommendations to be made by an advisory panel that has expressed “antivaccine rhetoric.”
Despite hitting its efficacy targets in the Phase III COAST-1 study, Sanofi’s amlitelimab remains “meaningfully inferior” to Dupixent, according to analysts at Leerink Partners.