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FEATURED STORIES
Early-stage financing rounds are on track to hit their lowest dollar value in years as funders continue to eschew risky investments, experts told BioSpace.
A mostly black box since emerging with more than a billion dollars in hand, Xaira Therapeutics is slowly pulling back the curtain, revealing plans to find partners and validate its pipeline.
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.
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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
In the latest example of big pharma entering AI collaborations or using AI-based tools, AstraZeneca’s deal with Absci will aim to produce an oncology candidate.
The acquisition will give Roche access to Carmot’s clinical portfolio of three GLP-1 receptor agonists, placing it squarely in the middle of the competition to treat overweight and obesity.
The European Medicines Agency is seeking additional information from the makers of GLP-1 drugs as part of its ongoing review of the potential risk of suicide and self-harm thoughts associated with the class.
FDA
Lilly’s Jaypirca (pirtobrutinib) can now be used to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic leukemia that had progressed from at least two prior lines of therapy, in addition to its previously-approved indications.
Johnson & Johnson’s AI investments include a research facility in San Francisco and a data science workforce of approximately 6,000 employees.
AbbVie’s $10.1 billion ImmunoGen buy and Altimmune’s Phase II win demonstrate that the antibody-drug conjugate market is red hot in cancer and GLP-1 drugs for weight loss are an absolute craze.
While Pfizer’s oral GLP-1 candidate met its primary endpoint in a Phase IIb obesity trial, twice-daily dosing of danuglipron resulted in high rates of adverse events including nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
From the skin to the lungs to the central nervous system, biotech companies are making progress toward delivering RNA therapeutics to multiple targets throughout the body. But challenges remain.
Citing slow enrollment and low clinical rates, the late-stage “evidence trials” are being discontinued. AstraZeneca said there are no safety concerns and no impact on Lokelma’s current approved indication.
The company’s investigational c-Met protein directed antibody-drug conjugate showed a “compelling” overall response rate in patients with previously treated non-small cell lung cancer.