WELCOME TO FIERCE LIFE SCIENCES WEEKLY DIGEST While the biopharma industry has received many well-deserved accolades during the COVID-19 pandemic, the fragile reputation of drugmakers was made shakier still by the actions of a few. After a years-long hiatus, Fierce Biotech’s list of Rotten Tomatoes has returned, naming five companies—and giving a special mention to the FDA. Elsewhere, Pfizer reported its antiviral pill for COVID cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89%, while GlaxoSmithKline notched a first-in-class success with its oral anemia drug daprodustat. Those stories, plus our top reads of the week, follow below. | |
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Featured Story | By Nick Paul Taylor Pfizer’s oral COVID-19 antiviral has cut the risk of hospitalization or death by 89% in a late-phase trial, prompting the Big Pharma to stop the study and race to seek emergency use authorization from the FDA. read more |
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Top Stories Of The Week By Angus Liu Doctors already have reservations about Biogen’s controversial Alzheimer’s disease drug, Aduhelm. Now a death reported to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) will likely trigger more doubts around its use. read more By Ben Adams The biopharma industry has received acclaim during the COVID-19 pandemic. But while some companies have been working hard on life-saving therapies, others' actions have further stained the industry's already shaky reputation. read more By Natalie Missakian Actress Jen Landon was just seven when her father, “Bonanza” and “Little House on the Prairie” star Michael Landon, died of pancreatic cancer in 1991. In a new Pancreatic Cancer Action Network campaign sponsored by AbbVie and Ipsen, she’s urging pancreatic cancer patients and their family members to talk to their doctor about genetic testing. read more By Andrea Park As Apple continues to accelerate its push into healthcare, the Big Tech company will have a seasoned veteran of the health tech world on its side. read more By Angus Liu After the FDA’s resounding rejection for AstraZeneca and FibroGen’s roxadustat, attention on novel oral anemia therapies has shifted to later players. Now, third-in-line GlaxoSmithKline has notched up a first-in-class success, posting heart safety wins in both dialysis and nondialysis patients. read more By Nick Paul Taylor Moderna has suffered an early blow to its move beyond prophylactic vaccines, revealing it won’t take the lead candidate in one of its core modalities into phase 2. The mRNA player removed the drug candidate from its pipeline after wrapping up a phase 1 dose-escalation study. read more By Kevin Dunleavy With many of its employees working from home and others having left for a new spinoff venture, Massachusetts-based bluebird bio has decided to move its headquarters from Cambridge three miles north to Somerville. The shift will save bluebird $120 million in overhead during the next six years, the company said. read more By Nick Paul Taylor Novartis has hacked off another piece of its $2.6 billion deal with Xencor, terminating its rights to a CD123xCD3 blood cancer bispecific that had a troubled time in early clinical development. read more By Kevin Dunleavy During its third quarter earnings presentation, Emergent BioSolutions revealed that its contract to produce COVID-19 vaccines for the U.S. government has been terminated. Since April, the Maryland-based company has been steeped in controversy for ruining millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses because of cross-contamination as it produced shots for AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson from its troubled facility in Baltimore. read more By Kyle LaHucik Northwestern University researchers found that a gene therapy targeting the region of the brain that houses dopamine-releasing neurons could boost the effectiveness of the widely used Parkinson's drug levodopa in mice. The team also found a a path to diagnosing the disease early. read more Resources Sponsored by: Medable, Inc. Find out how to improve clinical protocol adherence, and thus patient outcomes, by 15%+ with Medable’s latest White Paper. Sponsored by: IQVIA Learn how to elevate your omnichannel marketing strategy with Next Best - a combination of data and analytics, deployed to facilitate decision making. Sponsored by: Catalent Biologics Ypsomed and Catalent Biologics experts discuss strategies for integrated PFS manufacturing and auto-injector assembly to accelerate timelines and more in this webinar. Sponsored by: Catalent Biologics Learn how formulation development for a PFS affects manufacturing to drive the industry toward optimizing delivery of injectable products and, ultimately, improving patient care. Sponsored by: Blue Matter Consulting Paper describing how the chronic insomnia market offers big lessons for any biopharma company thinking about getting into digital therapeutics in any therapeutic area. Sponsored by: Medable, Inc. Find out how to improve clinical protocol adherence, and thus patient outcomes, by 15%+ with Medable’s latest White Paper. 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