Biotech
This week in charts: China deals, stock flatlines and Lilly’s M&A spree
This week, licensing deals between Chinese biotech companies and Western pharmaceutical firms remained active, Eli Lilly accelerated its M&A pace, while Alumis and Ultragenyx saw stock declines due to clinical trial failures.
Ionis’ rare neurology drug approved; Pfizer inks an ADC deal
This week's pharmaceutical industry highlights: FDA approved Ionis's Zanvastro for the rare disease Alexander disease; Pfizer signed an ADC co-development agreement with Medicus Pharma; Climb Bio reported positive early data for CLYM116; Revolution Medicines' Rasonque study was published in NEJM; Typewriter Therapeutics secured $56 million in funding; Tscan Therapeutics announced a 75% workforce reduction.
An AI drug specialist zeroes in on rare forms of obesity
AI drug discovery company Superluminal Medicines announced the completion of an oversubscribed $60 million Series B financing round to advance its first candidate drug targeting rare genetic obesity into the clinic. The drug targets the MC4R receptor and is expected to enter human testing by the end of the year. The company plans to initially focus on Bardet-Biedl syndrome and hypothalamic obesity, with potential future expansion to Prader-Willi syndrome and general obesity.
The next frontier: Advancing foundation models with multimodal data
Verily Health, together with NVIDIA and the NIH All of Us research program, has developed the first multimodal foundation model integrating EHR and genomic data, achieving significant improvements in type 2 diabetes risk prediction, and has open-sourced Forecast™ 1.0 via GitHub, providing an early blueprint for multimodal medical AI.
Moderna raises $2.6B to support cancer work; FDA clears updated COVID vaccines
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved updated COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax targeting the XFG variant. Moderna also announced it raised $2.6 billion through the issuance of convertible notes to support its cancer drug business. Additionally, Generate Biomedicines saw a sharp stock decline due to premature disclosure of trial data, ProFound Therapeutics received a $35 million investment from the Gates Foundation, and Gilead's new HIV drug Bixlenvo was also approved by the FDA.
Michael Polansky has a new, skin-focused biotech. Don’t call it a drug company.
Outer Bio recently emerged from stealth mode, with its core technology capable of keeping ex vivo skin tissue alive for about a month and using AI to screen millions of compounds to discover new skincare ingredients or skin disease therapies. Co-founder and CEO Michael Polansky stated that the company deliberately avoids the traditional biotech path, instead focusing on efficient data generation and planning to prioritize the cosmetics market route over pharmaceuticals.
Analysts Expect Revolution's Pancreatic Cancer Drug to Quickly Become a Blockbuster
Revolution Medicines' pancreatic cancer drug Rasonque has launched at a higher-than-expected price, and analysts believe it is poised to quickly become a blockbuster and potentially rank among the world's top-selling drugs. The drug is priced at $39,800 for a 30-day course, with an annual procurement cost exceeding $477,000. Evercore ISI projects its sales to reach $2.4 billion next year, and by 2034, sales from the pancreatic cancer indication alone could reach $15.1 billion. If expanded to other cancer types, peak annual revenue could reach $20.8 billion.
Study says Zepbound may lower healthcare costs; Summit and Akeso drug shows positive results in another trial in China
Today's industry news roundup: Eli Lilly's Zepbound study shows reduced medical costs for obese or overweight adults over 55; Akeso and Summit's ivonescimab shows survival benefit in a Phase III trial for advanced biliary tract cancer in China; McKesson acquires Precision Medicine Group for $2.25 billion; Haisco licenses immunology drug to newly formed Sentivera; Johnson & Johnson's Imaavy receives FDA approval for warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia; Bausch + Lomb advances dry eye drug into Phase III trials.
