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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.
Molecular glue degraders are gaining traction in the clinic as well as funding from Big Pharma, with their potential to treat previously “undruggable” cancers and immunological diseases. Here are five clinical programs worth keeping an eye on.
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.
FROM OUR EDITORS
Read our takes on the biggest stories happening in the industry.
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
As of Apr. 22, Sage had 338 full-time employees, all of whom will be laid off effective Aug. 22. The layoffs were announced a few weeks after Maryland’s Supernus Pharmaceuticals acquired Sage for up to $795 million.
FDA
The FDA’s clunky launch of Elsa, an AI tool to increase efficiency, has sparked concern from agency employees and outside experts.
Changing how biopharmas package their products, how regulators review new drugs and how mutated genes are fixed could make ultrarare disease treatments possible.
The FDA delivered two notable approvals for RSV immunization, UroGen overcame a negative advisory committee vote to secure an approval in bladder cancer, and more key regulatory nods from the past month.
The high court found that members of a task force that determines what preventive drugs must be covered can be removed at will by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The revamped and “more anti-vax skewed ACIP committee” at the CDC “has a bone to pick with mRNA vaccines,” according to Truist Securities analysts. Meanwhile, the FDA moves forward on having Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna update labels for their COVID vaccines.
The FDA found that data from a single Phase II study were “insufficient” to justify an accelerated approval review for sevasemten in Becker muscular dystrophy.
Altimmune’s pemvidutide failed to significantly improve fibrosis in MASH patients in a Phase IIb study. The biotech crashed 53% in the aftermath of the readout.
Calico will leverage 9MW3811’s anti-inflammatory mechanism to advance its mission of addressing aging-related diseases.
While ALTO-203 missed its depression-related endpoints, improvements in EEG biomarkers, attention and wakefulness point to signals of drug activity, William Blair said, though the analysts pointed to other indications as potentially more promising for future development.