Vaccines
While the company’s sales outlook was otherwise rosy, Merck took sales hits on Gardisil, Proquad, Varivax and Vaxneuvance.
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.
The coming flu season is the clearest indication yet that biopharma’s long-standing assumptions about predictability, prevention and portfolio structure are no longer guaranteed.
Sales of Sanofi’s COVID-19 and flu vaccines fell 17% in the third quarter amid declining vaccination rates and pricing pressures in Europe.
A key question for investors going forward will be whether Moderna’s other latent virus vaccines for Epstein-Barr and shingles can succeed after the failure of the CMV program.
To tailor cancer therapies to individual patients, Moderna, BioNTech and other companies are rethinking how they optimize manufacturing schedules and resources.
Johnson & Johnson has yet to make a drug pricing deal with Trump; Novo makes more moves under new CEO; more than 1,000 laid off from CDC, though many immediately hired back; the BIOSECURE Act is back and more.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was scheduled to convene Oct. 22 to 23, but this meeting has been postponed, with no new date specified. The delay comes as the VA published new research showing that COVID-19 shots prevented hospitalizations and death.
The U.S. government remains shut down, with the FDA closed for new drug applications until further notice; cell and gene therapy leaders gather for the annual meeting in Phoenix with the field in a state of flux; Pfizer and Amgen will make drugs available at a discount as President Donald Trump’s tariffs still loom; and new regulatory documents show how Pfizer beat out the competition for Metsera.
The FDA is hoping to repurpose GSK’s Wellcovorin for cerebral folate deficiency; Pfizer acquired fast-moving weight-loss startup Metsera for nearly $5 billion after suffering a hat trick of R&D failures; psychedelics are primed for M&A action and Eli Lilly may be next in line; RFK Jr.’s revamped CDC advisory committee met last week with confounding results; and Stealth secured its Barth approval.
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