News

IPO
After debuting on the public markets with $256.3 million and raking in an additional $472 million, Veradermics has emerged as one of biotech’s biggest post-IPO standouts. CEO Reid Waldman credits the weight loss craze for establishing consumer-driven channels.
FEATURED STORIES
Last month, the FDA launched TrialBlazer, intended to streamline the IND path and bring early clinical trials and medical innovation home to the U.S. It’s a start, but new agency leadership must see it through.
FDA
Significant leadership instability at the FDA—compounded by continued workforce attrition—led to a slight slowdown in overall regulatory productivity in the first half of this year, but the agency has been catching up of late.
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.
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If cell and gene therapy makers are going to achieve their mission to improve patients’ lives, the industry must come together to share information across stakeholders, from regulators to manufacturers to payers.
THE LATEST
FDA
With its FDA approval last week and first-to-market advantage, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals’ Rezdiffra will set the standard for other metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis candidates in development.
By votes of 11-0 and 8-3, respectively, an FDA advisory committee Friday deemed the risks of early death for both Johnson & Johnson’s Carvykti and Bristol Myers Squibb’s Abecma acceptable.
Asgard Therapeutics, a Swedish gene therapy biotech, has closed a $32 million Series A round with help from prominent pharma players as it prepares for a 2026 IND.
Bayer will co-create a novel target identification platform that leverages Aignostics’ artificial intelligence technology and proprietary multimodal patient cohorts.
The Chinese biotechs are broadening their collaboration. Hansoh Pharma is licensing Biotheus’ anti-EGFR/cMet bispecific antibody to develop antibody-drug conjugates.
After forging a partnership last year, Astellas is ending the pact with Cartesian Therapeutics and stopping the development of a Pompe disease candidate.
The PD-1 inhibitor Keytruda significantly improved overall survival in a late-stage trial when used with chemoradiotherapy to treat patients with newly diagnosed advanced cervical cancer.
FDA
The FDA approved Bristol Myers Squibb’s Breyanzi for chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic leukemia prior to Friday’s adcomm for the company’s other CAR-T therapy, Abecma.
Despite skepticism from FDA reviewers, the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee on Thursday strongly supported Geron’s imetelstat for the treatment of anemia in patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes.
FDA
After several delays, BeiGene on Thursday finally secured the FDA’s approval for its PD-1 inhibitor Tevimbra for the treatment of unresectable or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.