News

The Phase III results impressed Guggenheim Partners analysts both in terms of efficacy and safety. If approved, atacicept would become the first APRIL/BAFF inhibitor for IgAN to make it to the market.
FEATURED STORIES
FDA
After a chaotic year that has seen the attrition of over half the FDA’s senior leadership, many of these individuals have landed new roles—at Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Iovance and more. The FDA’s loss, it seems, is largely the pharmaceutical industry’s gain.
Despite announcing a broad pivot to siRNA earlier this year, Sarepta is following through with an investigational gene therapy: its limb-girdle muscular dystrophy candidate. But the treatment’s path forward, analysts say, is highly uncertain.
Sheila Gujrathi, former CEO of Gossamer Bio, has written a new book that aims to offer the type of leadership manual she never had in her early career.
Job Trends
Eisai’s cuts will affect 121 employees across the Japanese company’s U.S. operations, including 57 people at its American headquarters in Nutley, New Jersey. A company spokesperson said the pharma remains fully committed to the U.S. market.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
The group of like-named companies that include Novo Holdings and Novo Nordisk—the two tied to a multibillion-dollar buyout of Catalent currently under FTC review—ultimately send proceeds to the Novo Nordisk Foundation, one of the world’s largest charitable foundations.
THE LATEST
Novo Nordisk, under new CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar, has a new attitude. It’s making Pfizer livid.
Skyrizi and Rinvoq made nearly $7 billion combined, almost half of the company’s income for the quarter alone.
Otsuka Pharmaceuticals could shell out over $400 million in total for the Asia-Pacific rights to 4D-150, which combines a VEGF-C inhibitory RNAi with Regeneron’s Eylea into a single ocular injection.
Before being discontinued, the P2X7 receptor blocker had cleared a master protocol study in chronic pain, though Eli Lilly said that results were not sufficient for advancement of the Asahi Kasei–partnered asset.
Gilead is actively looking for late-stage and de-risked assets for potential deals across various therapeutic spaces, including liver disease, cancer and immunology.
IPO
With the shutdown ongoing, Evommune plans to close its IPO on Nov. 5 via a Securities Act clause that allows registrations to come into effect after a certain window has passed.
Ensho Therapeutics CEO Neena Bitritto-Garg, recently named to BioSpace’s 40 Under 40, proved her mettle managing one of the toughest partnerships out there: the one between Eisai and Biogen that led to new Alzheimer’s drugs Aduhelm and Leqembi.
CEO David Ricks wants Eli Lilly’s upcoming obesity pill to be accessible to patients who need it, but the company still needs to pay for the next generation of obesity medicines to come after that.
While the company’s sales outlook was otherwise rosy, Merck took sales hits on Gardisil, Proquad, Varivax and Vaxneuvance.
Bristol Myers Squibb beat analyst and consensus estimates for the third quarter with $12.2 billion in sales, but executives on the company’s investor call faced questions about a sluggish uptake for schizophrenia drug Cobenfy as well as a highly anticipated Alzheimer’s psychosis readout for the product.