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After less than three weeks on the job, Katherine Szarama is being replaced by Karim Mikhail as acting head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Mikhail had previously spent more than 20 years at Merck and joined the FDA last year.
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European pharma companies splashed billions of dollars into the U.S. biopharma sector in a matter of days, but there are differing views on whether the activity represents the rise of a new buyer class or a quirk of timing.
Three pharma CEOs joined the $30 million compensation club in 2025 but Eli Lilly’s David Ricks exceeded his nearest peer by more than $4 million.
IPO
After years of suffering from a bear market and more than 14 months of geopolitical turmoil shaking the macroenvironment, biotech appears to be moving on.
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The Department of Health and Human Services is spinning its wheels, unable to establish steady leadership at three major divisions—the CDC and the FDA’s two primary review units.
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Here’s how drug developers can best approach interactions with the agency following last year’s seismic changes to its leadership, workforce and policies.
FDA
FDA decisions lack majority consensus, experts agree, possibly leading to less nuanced verdicts on new drug applications. This type of “fiat” decision-making, as multiple regulatory experts have called it, is also bleeding into the agency’s policymaking.
Less than a year after cutting roughly 30% of its employees, BioAtla is letting go of an even larger chunk of its workforce as it considers its future, which could include strategic partnerships and selling off assets.
Days after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary appeared to malign uniQure’s AMT-130 in an interview with CNBC, the agency confirmed to the biotech that a sham surgery–controlled study is needed before submitting the gene therapy for approval.
As Novo Nordisk continues to lose ground in the obesity market to rival Eli Lilly, the Danish company has started construction projects to establish the ex-Alkermes plant as a hub for supplying oral GLP-1 products to global markets.
Aardvark Therapeutics is down 54% since Friday after the biotech said it detected “reversible cardiac observations” in a healthy volunteer study of its drug to treat extreme hunger in patients with the rare genetic disease.
IPO
Generate:Biomedicines has hit the public markets as the world begins to question the usefulness of AI technology. CEO Mike Nally says biology is the key to unlocking the technology’s full potential.
Yuviwel will compete with BioMarin’s Voxzogo. Meanwhile, BridgeBio is working to bring its own achondroplasia drug, the FGFR3 blocker infigratinib, to the market.
CDC
One of the two new members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices questioned the safety of COVID-19 vaccines before the Texas Senate in 2021.
A combination of Merck’s Keytruda and Pfizer’s Padcev could offer a chemotherapy-free treatment alternative for patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer, even those eligible for cisplatin treatment.