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Three years after the accelerated approval of its anti-amyloid Alzheimer’s therapy, Biogen—neck and neck in the market with Eli Lilly and its Kisunla offering—is focused on a near-term FDA decision for a subcutaneous induction dose of Leqembi, a presymptomatic readout in 2028 and a clutch of next-generation candidates.
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Speaking to BioSpace at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Novartis’ chief dealmaker Ronny Gal explains why the Swiss pharma hasn’t acquired a GLP-1, and why it probably won’t.
There hasn’t been a headline-stealing deal at J.P. Morgan yet. Nevertheless, the mood is positive amid green shoots and a flurry of dealmaking to end 2025.
Acadia Pharma’s Catherine Owen Adams has formed a group of small- to mid-cap biotechs to advocate against a ‘peanut butter blanket’ approach to drug pricing for small companies.
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With five CDER leaders in one year and regulatory proposals coming “by fiat,” the FDA is only making it more difficult to bring therapies to patients.
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Following FDA rejections, Regeneron and Scholar Rock are turning to other facilities to clear regulatory logjams created by quality problems at an ex-Catalent facility in Indiana. Novo Nordisk, meanwhile, has been tight-lipped about whether its own FDA applications have been affected.
U.K.-based pharmas will not face tariffs as long as Donald Trump is president, according to the agreement.
Following Novo Nordisk’s price cuts for its own GLP-1 medicines, Eli Lilly is offering discounts for the obesity drug purchased through LillyDirect. Both pharmas recently struck a deal with the White House for cheaper prices via the yet-to-be-launched TrumpRx.
Protego Biopharma is advancing a small-molecule drug that helps light chain proteins fold correctly, in turn addressing the underlying biological cause of AL amyloidosis.
The centerpiece of the deal is the in vivo editor TSRA-196, which in preclinical studies has shown robust editing at SERPINA1, the locus linked to alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.
The alleged deaths were detected by the FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, reports from which “generally cannot be used to determine” causation or even contribution, according to the agency.
If approved, Ascendis’ TransCon CNP would become the second therapy for achondroplasia, challenging BioMarin’s Voxzogo.
As bispecifics, ADCs, protein degraders, and AI-designed mini-proteins move into the clinic, discovery teams face a new bottleneck: engineering and producing molecules whose complexity challenges conventional workflows.
As big pharmas including Takeda and Novo Nordisk flee the cell therapy space and smaller biotechs shutter their operations, these players are sticking around to take the modality as far as it can go.
The FDA’s docket in December includes decisions for two big biologic franchises: BMS’s Breyanzi and Amgen’s Uplizna.