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After a sluggish 2025, biotech IPOs have roared back to life. Fueled by resilient stock performances and improving market sentiment, the total number of public debuts so far this year has already eclipsed 2025’s total.
FEATURED STORIES
As antibody-drug conjugates advance and move into earlier lines of treatment, drug developers have to build gentler therapies that don’t just extend survival but improve it.
FDA’s rare disease decisions are strongest when the patient community has a voice in advisory committee decisions.
The lineup at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference will provide critical insight into where the industry is headed with regard to targets being explored to vanquish the elusive neurodegenerative disease.
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Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
Congressional letters sent to the CEOs of Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Merck, BMS and AbbVie this week voicing concerns about the pharmas’ clinical trials in China highlight an ongoing discrepancy in how government and industry think about the rise of the Asian country’s biotech industry.
THE LATEST
ALS
After a demoralizing period punctuated by the withdrawal of one of the few marketed therapies for ALS, investment in new biotechs, state-backed collaborative initiatives and buzz at BIO2025 suggest a new day in drug development for one of medicine’s most intractable diseases.
With a flurry of recent Big Pharma investment in radiopharmaceutical therapeutics, the FDA issued draft guidance last month in a move former FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn sees as the regulator “trying to get ahead on a new set of therapy that they see becoming very important for cancer.”
While trade groups hail the executive order as a national health security opportunity, analysts warn that production costs could go up in the near term.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—along with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary and CBER Director Vinay Prasad—argued against vaccine mandates, partly because they limited medical choice. This week, the FDA under their leadership approved updated COVID-19 vaccines with restrictions that do the same.
In December 2024, Teva also secured FDA approval for the other liraglutide brand Victoza, indicated for type 2 diabetes.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will testify before the Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 4, following the ouster of CDC Director Susan Monarez and tapping of HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill as her interim replacement.
Nipocalimab, approved as Imaavy for generalized myasthenia gravis earlier this year, failed to show significantly added benefit when used with an anti-TNFα therapy in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
In another blow to Prothena’s neurodegenerative disease portfolio, anti-amyloid candidate PRX012 has run into the same problem that larger peers Biogen and Eli Lilly have battled: high rates of swelling in the brain.
Sometimes, job interviews stand out for all the wrong reasons, including odd settings, off-topic topics and questionable decorum. BioSpace collected several stories that highlight biopharma professionals’ strangest experiences as they pursued employment.
Exelixis is looking at the possibility of relocating some of the eliminated Pennsylvania roles to its headquarters in Alameda, California, according to a company spokesperson.