STAT

STAT+: Here are the best biopharma CEOs of 2023

It’s that time of the year again when I recognize the Best Biopharma CEO of the year.

This year’s selection is so deservingly obvious that I won’t fabricate suspense by starting with an honor roll of runners-up. More on those high-achieving folks later. Let’s get right to the main course: David Ricks of Eli Lilly is the runaway, rock star, who-else-could-it-be Best Biopharma CEO of 2023.

What an incredible year it’s been for Ricks and the Lilly executive team who helped him achieve so much. My colleague Matt Herper wrote earlier this year about the “dynamic duo” of Ricks and Chief Scientific Officer Dan Skovronsky.

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1 year 7 months ago

Adam's Take, Biotech, biotechnology, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Pharmaceuticals, STAT+

STAT

The biotech news you missed from the weekend

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Hello from ASH! Writing this Readout from a press room at the annual hematology confab here in San Diego. Today’s edition is chockfull of Vertex content, plus some extras from ASH and elsewhere.

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Hello from ASH! Writing this Readout from a press room at the annual hematology confab here in San Diego. Today’s edition is chockfull of Vertex content, plus some extras from ASH and elsewhere.

Read the rest…

1 year 7 months ago

Biotech, Business, Health, Pharma, Politics, The Readout, biotechnology, Cancer, drug development, drug pricing, FDA, finance, genetics, Pharmaceuticals, Research

STAT

Eli Lilly’s latest $1.4 billion deal might come unglued

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Good morning, everyone. Damian here with another multibillion-dollar deal, a word on the future of Sanofi, and a setback in one of medicine’s longest-running quests.

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Good morning, everyone. Damian here with another multibillion-dollar deal, a word on the future of Sanofi, and a setback in one of medicine’s longest-running quests.

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1 year 7 months ago

Biotech, Business, Health, Pharma, Politics, The Readout, biotechnology, drug development, drug prices, drug pricing, finance, Pharmaceuticals, Research, vaccines

STAT

STAT+: AbbVie purchases neuroscience developer Cerevel for $8.7 billion

Abbvie announced Wednesday that it will purchase Cerevel Therapeutics and its pipeline of experimental neurological and psychiatric medications for $8.7 billion.

The deal marks the second billion-dollar acquisition by AbbVie in under a week. Facing the prospect of declining sales from two of its best-selling drugs, the company also acquired Immunogen and its ovarian cancer treatment for $10 billion last Thursday.

With the buyout, AbbVie will acquire several clinical-stage molecules for Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, and epilepsy, among other disorders, many of which previously belonged to one of the company’s biggest rivals.

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1 year 8 months ago

Biotech, AbbVie, biotechnology, STAT+

STAT

STAT+: Do GLP-1s have a future treating alcoholism?

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Hello, everyone. Damian here with a rebound for biotech stocks, the potential of Wegovy, and a major change at the FDA.

The need-to-know this morning

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Hello, everyone. Damian here with a rebound for biotech stocks, the potential of Wegovy, and a major change at the FDA.

The need-to-know this morning

• Abbvie said it would acquire ImmunoGen, a maker of cancer drugs, for $10.1 billion. ImmunoGen is being acquired for $31.26 per share, or a 95% premium to its Wednesday closing price. The company markets an antibody-drug conjugate called Elahere used to treat ovarian cancer.

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1 year 8 months ago

Biotech, Business, Health, Health Care, Pharma, The Readout, biotechnology, drug development, drug prices, drug pricing, FDA, finance, genetics, Pharmaceuticals

STAT

STAT+: AbbVie buys Immunogen, maker of targeted cancer drugs, for $10 billion

AbbVie will pay $10 billion for the biotech firm Immunogen, the company said Thursday, acquiring an approved treatment for ovarian cancer and buying into a burgeoning area of oncology.

Under the agreement, AbbVie will pay $31.26 per share in cash for Immunogen, a nearly 100% premium to the company’s recent trading price. Central to the deal, expected to close in the middle of next year, is Elahere, an Immunogen product that won Food and Drug Administration approval for advanced ovarian cancer in 2022.

Elahere is among a surging class of cancer medicines called antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, which are designed to deliver a targeted dose of chemotherapy directly to tumor cells while sparing healthy tissues. AbbVie’s acquisition is the latest multibillion-dollar deal in the space, following Merck’s $22 billion agreement with ADC specialist Daiichi Sankyo and Pfizer’s $43 billion buyout of Seagen earlier this year.

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1 year 8 months ago

Biotech, biotechnology, Cancer, STAT+

STAT

STAT+: Cassava pulled back the curtain on its Alzheimer’s study — and revealed insurmountable problems

Cassava Sciences has long claimed its experimental drug, called simufilam, slows the cognitive decline of people with Alzheimer’s. On Friday, we learned how: The company recruited a large number of people into its clinical trial who don’t have Alzheimer’s.

People who almost certainly had Alzheimer’s were also included in the study, but in this group, a placebo outperformed Cassava’s drug.

The conclusion, of course, is obvious: Simufilam is inactive. It’s an inert compound no more effective than a placebo. Cassava’s assertion that simufilam is showing “disease-modifying activity” falls apart given its study was opened to people who should have been ineligible because they were misdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Whether that was done intentionally or unwittingly isn’t known, but it’s certainly troubling and makes the case for immediate, regulatory intervention even stronger.

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1 year 9 months ago

Adam's Take, Biotech, Alzheimer’s, biotechnology, STAT+

STAT

STAT+: Regeneron gene therapy improves hearing in child

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Hi! Today we see that prime editing works nicely in monkeys, learn more about the potential new bill to speed treatments for life-threatening diseases, and find that a Regeneron (formerly Decibel) therapy may restore hearing in children.

The need-to-know this morning
• Sanofi said it will spin out its consumer health unit and cut costs in other areas in order to increase spending on research and development of new medicines. Separately, the French pharma giant reported third-quarter earnings and revenue that fell short of analyst consensus. Sanofi reiterated its financial forecast for the remainder of the year, but new, long-range guidance for 2024 and 2025 implies financial results lower than current analyst estimates.
• Abbvie reported adjusted third-quarter earnings of $2.95 per share, beating the consensus estimate. Revenue was $13.93 billion, down 6% year over year but better than consensus. Sales of the arthritis medicine Humira fell 36% from the previous year to $3.5 billion, largely due to generic competition, but were still in line with consensus. The company raised financial guidance for the remainder of the year.
• The FDA approved a new treatment for ulcerative colitis made by Eli Lilly. As Jonathan Wosen reports, the drug, called Omvoh, is the first to target an immune signaling pathway that plays a key role in sustaining the chronic, gastrointestinal disease.

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1 year 9 months ago

Biotech, Business, Health, Health Care, The Readout, biotechnology, Congress, drug development, FDA, finance, Pharmaceuticals, policy

STAT

Here are the 10 drugs that will be up first for Medicare price negotiation

WASHINGTON — Medicare on Tuesday announced it will negotiate prices for 10 drugs, including major blood thinners and diabetes medications, in the first round of its negotiation program created in Democrats’ drug pricing reform law.

The drugs include Bristol Myers Squibb’s blood thinner Eliquis, Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly’s diabetes drug Jardiance, Johnson & Johnson’s blood thinner Xarelto, Merck’s diabetes drug Januvia, AstraZeneca’s diabetes drug Farxiga, Novartis’ heart failure treatment Entresto, Amgen’s rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel, Johnson & Johnson and AbbVie’s blood cancer treatment Imbruvica, J&J’s anti-inflammatory medicine Stelara, and Novo Nordisk insulins that go by names including Fiasp and NovoLog.

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1 year 11 months ago

Biotech, Politics, CMS, drug prices, health care policy, Joe Biden, Medicare, White House

STAT

STAT+: Gene therapy eyedrops restored a boy’s sight. Similar treatments could help millions

MIAMI — Dr. Alfonso Sabater pulled up two photos of Antonio Vento Carvajal’s eyes. One showed cloudy scars covering both eyeballs. The other, taken after months of gene therapy given through eyedrops, revealed no scarring on either eye.

MIAMI — Dr. Alfonso Sabater pulled up two photos of Antonio Vento Carvajal’s eyes. One showed cloudy scars covering both eyeballs. The other, taken after months of gene therapy given through eyedrops, revealed no scarring on either eye.

Antonio, who’s been legally blind for much of his 14 years, can see again.

The teen was born with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a rare genetic condition that causes blisters all over his body and in his eyes. But his skin improved when he joined a clinical trial to test the world’s first topical gene therapy. That gave Sabater an idea: What if it could be adapted for Antonio’s eyes?

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2 years 1 week ago

Biotech, biotechnology

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