Tristan Manalac

Tristan Manalac

Senior Staff Writer

Tristan is BioSpace‘s senior staff writer. Based in Metro Manila, Tristan has more than eight years of experience writing about medicine, biotech and science. Being formally trained in molecular biology, he once dreamed of collecting degrees and starting his own lab. But these days, he finds his greatest joy in a bottle of beer and a beautiful sentence. He can be reached at tristan.manalac@biospace.com, tristan@tristanmanalac.com or on LinkedIn.

FDA
Less than 24 hours after resigning his post as the FDA’s head drug regulator, George Tidmarsh is reportedly reconsidering his decision and vowing to fight for his name and credibility amid a probe into his “personal conduct” at the agency.
Pfizer has filed two separate lawsuits in an effort to stop Novo Nordisk’s unsolicited bid to acquire obesity biotech Metsera.
Vinay Prasad, chief of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, is planning to publish a paper this month to outline his office’s thinking on accelerating gene editing reviews.
Before being discontinued, the P2X7 receptor blocker had cleared a master protocol study in chronic pain, though Eli Lilly said that results were not sufficient for advancement of the Asahi Kasei–partnered asset.
Gilead is actively looking for late-stage and de-risked assets for potential deals across various therapeutic spaces, including liver disease, cancer and immunology.
IPO
With the shutdown ongoing, Evommune plans to close its IPO on Nov. 5 via a Securities Act clause that allows registrations to come into effect after a certain window has passed.
The investment, which will expand Eli Lilly’s existing campus in Puerto Rico, is slated to create 100 new jobs, on top of around 1,000 construction-related roles.
With a 100% response rate in a Phase II study, KYV-101 sets a new efficacy bar in generalized myasthenia gravis, according to analysts at William Blair.
The clinical hold comes days after Intellia voluntarily paused enrollment and dosing in the same two studies.
Shingrix sales in the U.S. took a 15% dive in the third quarter. GSK is now the second Big Pharma to report declining vaccine sales, after Sanofi reported a similar decline last week.
Despite the rejection, analysts saw Regeneron’s use of an alternate filler for Eylea HD as a positive development, with BMO Capital Markets noting that this could signal the end of manufacturing troubles for the franchise.
The reprioritization initiative extends Aldeyra’s cash runway into the second half of 2027.
Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson are joining fellow Big Pharma peers in upping their investment in AI, with Lilly looking to create the industry’s ‘most powerful supercomputer’ and J&J building a virtual operating room.
Phase I/II data for rese-cel point to its therapeutic potential in systemic lupus erythematosus and lupus nephritis, as well as other autoimmune conditions.
BioMarin no longer expects to hit its $4 billion revenue target by 2027, citing various market factors such as impending competition for achondroplasia therapy Voxzogo and the divestment of the gene therapy Roctavian.