| This week's sponsor is CMIC Group. | | | Considering Japanese Market Entry?
As Japan's largest CRO with end-to-end solution, CMIC Group is your most experienced partner in Japan & the US. Our experts will help you determine the best strategy at any stage of drug development.
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Today's Rundown Pfizer eyes Fierce 15 winner Vivet buy as gene therapy fever heats up NGM Bio gains Genentech, Lilly veteran as new R&D chief Merck doubles down on NGM Bio pact, but culls obesity drug Flagship Pioneering adds a new $824M biotech growth fund ACC: Merck anacetrapib reveal bodes neutral at best for DalCor’s dalcetrapib Alexion strikes another anti-FcRn deal, bagging Affibody drug WHO panel pushes for genome editing research registry A liquid biopsy that combines Illumina’s ‘ultradeep’ sequencing with Grail’s machine learning Sage wins OK for depression drug Zulresso. Up next? Major marketing challenges Featured Story | | | Wednesday, March 20, 2019 Vivet is in the crosshairs of Big Pharma Pfizer as the U.S. giant looks to get in on the new industry craze of buying up small gene therapy biotechs. |
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Top Stories Wednesday, March 20, 2019 It’s a pretty good news day for NGM Bio: Merck doubled down on its R&D pact, and it’s nabbed a Genentech executive to help run its trials. Wednesday, March 20, 2019 Back in 2015, Merck penned a $450 million R&D pact with little NGM Bio for a broad range of early-stage assets. Today, Merck is extending this pact, although it’s also tidying up shop with the culling of one particular therapy that didn’t work out. Wednesday, March 20, 2019 Flagship Pioneering has raised $824 million for a new fund to support biotech and health companies that have come up through its Flagship Labs foundry. The new fund, dubbed the Special Opportunities Fund II, eclipsed its predecessor, the Special Opportunities Fund I, which raised $285 million in 2016. Wednesday, March 20, 2019 At the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology this week, a new analysis of data for Merck’s anacetrapib cast a shadow on DalCor’s hypothesis—that CETP inhibitors, a class that has failed in broad heart disease populations, may prove useful in patients with certain genetic variants. Wednesday, March 20, 2019 Alexion has paid Affibody $25 million (€22 million) to codevelop a treatment for rare IgG-mediated autoimmune diseases. The deal gives Alexion rights to an anti-FcRn drug designed to have a longer half-life than rival assets in development at Argenx, UCB and other companies. Wednesday, March 20, 2019 A WHO advisory committee has spoken out against clinical applications of human germline genome editing. The panel, which formed in the wake of China’s germline modification scandal, wants WHO to create a central registry on human genome editing research as part of an effort to boost global governance of the field. Wednesday, March 20, 2019 Scientists have been working on new ways to increase the sensitivity of blood tests for detecting cancer, known as liquid biopsies. Now, a consortium of scientists from three top U.S. cancer research institutions, along with Illumina and Grail, have developed a new assay that could detect multiple targetable cancer mutations with a high degree of accuracy. Tuesday, March 19, 2019 Sage Therapeutics has the first-ever approval for a postpartum depression drug, thanks to the FDA’s Tuesday green light for Zulresso. But it also faces some big challenges in launching the new drug: its 60-hour infusion time, for instance. | This week's sponsor is Accenture. | | | [Webinar] Embracing Emerging Technology in Drug Development
Wednesday, March 27 | 10am ET / 7am PT
During this webinar, attendees will learn how organizations can rapidly adopt digital solutions while maintaining a focus on the patient, harmonize a rapidly transforming workforce with new technological capabilities, and align new technologies with an organization's R&D strategy and goals for profitable growth. Register Now! |
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