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.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
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
Pfizer plans to settle a lawsuit filed 12 years ago by distributors of Lipitor for $93 million. The pharma giant was accused of colluding with Ranbaxy Laboratories to delay generic versions of the drug.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals is modifying the primary and secondary endpoints of the Helios-B Phase III trial investigating its next-generation RNA interference therapy in patients with ATTR amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy.
The regulator has granted a priority review of the efficacy supplement for Sarepta Therapeutics’ gene therapy Elevidys with a target decision date of June 21, 2024.
Novo Nordisk seems to believe it can do a better job managing troubled Catalent than the contract manufacturer. However, the Danish drugmaker has its work cut out for it.
Following a patient case of severe liver enzyme elevations, Inventiva is suspending its Phase III NATiV3 study in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis as Madrigal Pharmaceuticals awaits a March 14 PDUFA date.
The progression-free survival metric has helped shepherd many products across the regulatory finish line. Experts say the FDA’s new emphasis on overall survival will be felt especially by small biotechs.
Claiming that Karuna Therapeutics’ board of directors withheld crucial information, a shareholder has filed a lawsuit seeking to block the $14 billion merger with Bristol Myers Squibb.
Kelonia Therapeutics’ in vivo gene placement system is being tapped to help Astellas Pharma expand its portfolio of in vivo CAR-T cell therapies for cancer.
While Gilead Sciences did not provide specific reasons for the halt, the company said it is “reviewing the benefit-risk” of its anti-CD47 antibody magrolimab across all ongoing trials.
In the next two weeks, the FDA is set to decide on a Humira biosimilar and a treatment for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.