Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox.

Hello! Hope your weekend was a blissful one. Today, we talk about AbbVie’s outsize marketing spend, see how GLP-1s are impacting cancer rates, and more.

Read the rest…

Vallabh and her husband, Eric Minikel, scientists at the Broad Institute, have been racing to develop a treatment for prion disease, a rare form of neurodegeneration that killed her mother at age 51 and would, if left untreated, likely kill Vallabh as well. It’s an insidious disease. Although it can have several causes, in her case, a single genetic misspelling will lead neurons to produce misfolded versions of otherwise workaday proteins called prions. These mutant prions jump cell to cell, like viruses, misfolding other prions they touch and forming toxic, neuron-killing chains.

So why not use CRISPR to repair or remove the mutant gene?

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox.

Good morning. Read on today for some exclusive hiring news and a retraction of a high-profile paper on cancer detection.

Read the rest…

Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox.

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, which means it’a also “The Bear” season 3 premiere day. For my Boston readers, know that Ayo Edebiri has been thinking deeply about the tragedy of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

Read the rest…

Cerevel Therapeutics, a neuroscience biotech that AbbVie is acquiring, reported that its drug for Parkinson’s disease improved motor symptom control as an add-on therapy in a late-stage trial.

The 27-week study found that patients taking the drug, tavapadon, on top of a common Parkinson’s treatment called levodopa, experienced 1.7 hours of improvement in “on time” without dyskinesia, which is the amount of time patients function well without involuntary movements that can be brought on by levodopa. That compared to 0.6 hours of improvement among patients taking placebo and levodopa.

This difference was statistically significant and clinically meaningful, Cerevel said in a press release Thursday. There was also a statistically significant decrease in “off time,” the amount of time patients experienced symptoms. The full results will be submitted for presentation at future medical meetings.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

After two decades on the U.S. market, Humira (adalimumab) last year began facing competition from multiple less-expensive biosimilar versions of the blockbuster therapy. Cyltezo is one of the only biosimilars that can be substituted for Humira at the pharmacy counter without a doctor’s permission, so it is in a better competitive position than most others. 

The price of Humira rose 470% in the 20 years following its launch in 2003 to reach upward of $84,000 annually. List prices of Humira biosimilars are as much as 85% lower. 

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

New biotech newsletter launching this Thursday. Don’t miss out.

Hello, everyone. Damian here with a look at a pivotal FDA approval, good news for a small biotech company, and why not all buyouts are worth writing home about.

Read the rest…

On Thursday night, President Biden proposed expanding one of his most popular policies: the Medicare price negotiation process that was put in place as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. “Americans pay more for prescription drugs than anywhere else,” Biden said. “It’s wrong and I’m ending it.”

Obviously, the drug industry is not going to be happy about new price limitations in the U.S., the biggest market for pharmaceuticals. But, even more than that, Biden’s move emphasizes a painful reality: That pharmaceutical companies remain one of the biggest political targets in the country — despite their key role in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic and their development of wildly effective new weight loss drugs.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Want to stay on top of the science and politics driving biotech today? Sign up to get our biotech newsletter in your inbox.

Hello! Today, we discuss how the FDA is holding firm in how it handles non-compliant trial sponsors and investigators, how PhRMA is rebuilding its ranks, and offer up a fabulous podcast.

The need-to-know this morning

• Advisers to the European Medicines Agency recommended the approval of Qalsody, a treatment for ALS from Biogen.

What do CEOs owe the world?

Did Humira break the system? And can you CRISPR a fetus? We cover all that and more this week on “The Readout LOUD,” STAT’s biotech podcast.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…

Gonzalez had previously said he would depart when AbbVie had a plan in place to move on from its best-selling drug, Humira, which is now facing competition from cheaper biosimilars.

He will be replaced by Chief Operating Officer Robert Michael, who, like Gonzalez, is a longtime AbbVie executive. Gonzalez, 70, will become executive chairman of the board of directors.

Gonzalez should be a sobering reminder to the drug industry’s critics of how resilient a CEO’s reputation can be. Because while he has been a subject of nearly constant criticism for AbbVie’s handling of Humira and the patents protecting it, investors are likely to remember him fondly.

Continue to STAT+ to read the full story…