Weight loss
M&A headlined for a second straight week as Genmab acquired Merus for $8 billion; Pfizer strikes most-favored-nation deal with White House; CDER Director George Tidmarsh caused a stir with a now-deleted LinkedIn post; GSK CEO Emma Walmsley will step down from her role; and uniQure’s gene therapy offers new hope for patients with Huntington’s disease.
The decision to stop the Phase IIb study was driven by “strategic business reasons,” according to a federal clinical trials database.
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.
Small and large drugmakers alike have made big, proactive moves to secure the production capacity that will be vital to serving the weight loss market.
The acquisition of breakout obesity star Metsera should pump new life into Pfizer’s portfolio, which over the last two years has suffered from three discontinued assets.
In this deep dive, BioSpace explores the next big thing in obesity.
In letters to Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, the FDA accused the companies of downplaying the risks of their GLP-1 weight loss drugs during a prime time special with Oprah Winfrey.
The White House is clamping down on pharma’s ability to buy new molecules from Chinese biotechs; Sanofi, Merck and others abandon the U.K. after the introduction of a sizeable levy; Novo CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar lays off 9,000 while the company presents new data at EASD; Capsida loses a patient in a gene therapy trial; and CDER Director George Tidmarsh walks back comments on FDA adcomms.
The FDA has vowed to fix a pharma ad loophole—but they’re targeting the wrong one.
The sub-analysis, presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes congress, showed improved safety data to counteract past tolerability issues.
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