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Pfizer, Sanofi and others report Q3 beats; AbbVie, Roche and Novartis strike big deals; the 2024 presidential election looms; and BioSpace takes a look back at 10 years of NextGen, our annual pick of young biotechs to watch.
FEATURED STORIES
At one point in merger negotiations with Novartis, Avidity CEO Sarah Boyce and her team walked, cutting off access to a data room and moving on to a capital raise.
Previous mega blockbusters took years to reach their peak sales. Lilly’s tirzepatide franchise is on course to exceed them just a few years in.
Experts suggest the FDA’s Advanced Manufacturing Technologies designation could be a lifeline for improving production processes for approved cell and gene therapies.
Job Trends
AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) today announced the acquisition of DJS Antibodies Ltd (“DJS”), a privately-held UK-based biotechnology company dedicated to discovering and developing antibody medicines that target difficult-to-drug disease-causing proteins, such as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
Unpredictable communication and a lack of transparency are eroding the industry’s and the public’s trust. The FDA, experts agree, needs to take control of the narrative.
THE LATEST
FDA
In a fireside chat at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy conference, CBER Director Peter Marks spoke with Takeda’s Kristin Van Goor about how the regulator is approaching the exploding gene therapy space.
While Teva missed Wall Street expectations in the first quarter of 2024, it reported Wednesday a 5% increase in Q1 revenues while reporting that the company’s schizophrenia candidate scored a late-stage trial victory
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals on Wednesday revealed that its investigational gene therapy DB-OTO restored hearing in two young children, according to an oral presentation at the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy annual meeting.
Amylyx’s recent decision to withdraw its ALS drug Relyvrio from the market highlights an important business decision for companies: when to continue marketing or investigating a drug that has failed a pivotal or confirmatory study.
AstraZeneca announced that it will voluntarily pull Vaxzevria from the global market amid a sharp decline in demand and following the company’s recent admission that its vaccine is linked with a rare side effect.
As interest in psychedelic therapies ramp up, Lykos Therapeutics will go in front of the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee on June 4 to present its investigational treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Pfizer’s investigational Duchenne muscular dystrophy gene therapy fordadistrogene movaparvovec has been hit with another patient death, forcing the pharma to pause dosing in its Phase III study.
FDA
As Sarepta Therapeutics moves closer to full approval and an expanded label for its gene therapy, some experts push back on clinical efficacy and cost while others note the hope it provides patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
The biotech touted its prime editing technology at ASGCT on Tuesday after receiving FDA clearance last week for a clinical study of a drug candidate based on the platform.
Tuesday afternoon’s session was standing room only as representatives from various biopharma companies presented on their work to improve the efficiency and quality of AAV production.