News

President Donald Trump unwrapped a massive drug pricing policy as CMS prepares for the next round of Medicare drug price negotiations; Vinay Prasad to take the helm at the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research; Bayer cuts 2,000 more employees; Eli Lilly’s Zepbound scores again; and the Galapagos story turns again.
FEATURED STORIES
The EPIC Act has been proposed with bipartisan and industry support to give small molecule drugs the same protection against price negotiation as biologics, but concerns over how to balance the federal budget could prevent a short-term fix to the IRA.
IPO
Around 25 companies have gone public this year, most of them in the early months. Most have tumbled from their original offer price.
By far, the largest acquisition of 2024 was Novo Holdings’ yet-to-be-closed buyout of manufacturer Catalent at $16.5 billion. Outside of that, the leading pharmaceutical companies kept to less than $5 billion per deal.
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Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
The HHS secretary recently canceled $500 million worth of BARDA contracts around mRNA vaccine research. But the U.S. government has already spent billions on this work, which has saved millions of lives.
THE LATEST
An independent data monitoring board found that BeiGene’s ociperlimab was unlikely to significantly boost overall survival in patients with untreated NSCLC.
The FDA was scheduled to release its decision on Novavax’s updated, protein-based COVID-19 vaccine on April 1, but the agency’s principal deputy commissioner intervened.
Pharma’s reprieve from Donald Trump’s tariffs is expected to be temporary, with Leerink analysts anticipating possible sector-specific duties “in the next month or so.”
Although U.S. full-time employees worked an average of 42.9 hours weekly last year, according to Gallup, that wasn’t true for most BioSpace LinkedIn poll respondents. A Karius HR executive discusses a few potential reasons for the longer workweeks.
FDA
Following the dramatic late-night resignation of Peter Marks last Friday, Steele, a senior advisor to the division, takes the reins in a department inside an agency beset by cuts, layoffs, and confusion.
After some high-profile crashes, the one-time biotech darling is inching toward success with its Hunter syndrome treatment, which today began a rolling BLA for accelerated approval.
FDA
With the recently announced layoffs of 3,500 FDA staffers and exits of branch directors Patrizia Cavazzoni and Peter Marks, there could be a wealth of talent available to biopharma companies. Does this pose an ethical quandary? It depends on who you ask.
Trump has repeatedly called April 2 “Liberation Day,” alluding to a more sweeping and aggressive set of tariffs. Leerink Partners analysts said that the risks from Trump’s tariffs on the biopharma industry are “underappreciated.”
Johnson & Johnson will not appeal the dismissal of its bankruptcy proposal.
Nearly two dozen states on Tuesday sued the Department of Health and Human Services over a planned $11 billion funding cut for public health projects while New Jersey Senator Cory Booker spoke for 25 hours in protest of Trump administration policies.