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Novo Nordisk reported a loss in a head-to-head trial of CagriSema against Lilly’s Zepbound earlier this week. This time around, Lilly’s orforglipron bested Novo’s oral Wegovy in blood sugar control and weight reduction—albeit with a few extra discontinuations as compared to its rival.
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Alternatives to opioids are desperately needed to better treat moderate to severe acute pain, but to date, we’ve seen few novel analgesics hit the market.
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.
Rare disease drug developers struggle to survive in a biopharma investment market that prioritizes large patient populations. Initiatives like the Orphan Therapeutics Accelerator are attempting to solve what CEO Craig Martin says is not a science problem, but a math problem.
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Eli Lilly’s win in a head-to-head trial drove Novo Nordisk’s market cap to pre-Wegovy levels not long after the victor became the first pharma company to top a $1 trillion valuation. It seems one company can do no right, while the other can do no wrong.
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After a series of unfortunate regulatory rejections and manufacturing issues surfaced, Regeneron’s shares dipped to $483 this summer—the lowest they’d been since early 2021. But they now sit higher than they did at the start of the year.
Saol Therapeutics received a complete response letter for its pyruvate dehydrogenase complex deficiency treatment a week after the FDA unveiled its Rare Disease Evidence Principles program. On Dec. 18, in a Type A meeting, the biotech will attempt to convince the agency that its drug fits perfectly into the framework.
TERN-701 more than doubled the response rate of Novartis’ rival approved therapy in an early-stage trial, sending the biotech’s shares flying.
Pfizer apparently had more in the tank after the high-profile battle to acquire Metsera earlier this fall. The company has licensed a new GLP-1 from YaoPharma.
FDA
For traditional approval, CAR T therapies will need to establish superiority over current standard treatments, including already-approved CAR T products.
At the heart of the deal is Relation’s Lab-in-the-Loop platform, which uses AI models to improve understanding of diseases and guide clinical development programs.
Structure’s aleniglipron elicited over 11% weight loss in a Phase II trial, sending the biotech’s stock up nearly 103% as markets closed on Monday.
A mid-stage study for ABI-5366 will begin mid next year, while Assembly continues to assess the Phase II potential of ABI-1179.
The status could support staged transitions to new manufacturing processes, potentially mitigating some risks of high-stakes switches.
What China is accomplishing in R&D “has implications for everyone playing in the R&D or innovation world,” McKinsey’s Fangning Zhang says.