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Annalee Armstrong

Senior Editor

Annalee Armstrong is an award-winning biopharma journalist covering the business of drug development. She has been a journalist for more than 18 years, covering the pharmaceutical and biotech industry for the last eight.

Annalee began her career at small newspapers across Western Canada. During the assignment of a lifetime, the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race, she met her husband in Alaska and eventually moved to the U.S. Since then, Annalee has covered energy, environmental regulations, healthcare and biopharma. Prior to BioSpace, Annalee was senior editor for Fierce Biotech, where she received several awards for her writing and editing. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, with her husband, two wild boys, an anxious Rhodesian Ridgeback and an indifferent tabby cat.

She is senior editor at BioSpace and curates the Biopharm Executive newsletter every Wednesday. You can reach her at  annalee.armstrong@biospace.com. Follow her on LinkedIn.

Investors looking for more transformative business development at Novo will have to wait, but a new partnership with China’s Hengrui Pharma adds a new weekly oral option to the Danish pharma’s early pipeline.
Nektar Therapeutics has been awarded $90 million in damages after a jury sided with the biotech, which had accused Big Pharma Eli Lilly of “botching” an analysis of their formerly partnered autoimmune drug.
Analysts were keen to see a new modality compete with Roche’s approved drug Lucentis in the late-stage trial but new safety issues could complicate the future for Merck’s candidate.
The weekly insulin Onswik will now be available to U.S. patients after initial approvals in Europe, Mexico and Japan.
After imeroprubart failed to demonstrate sufficient efficacy in lupus during a Phase 2b trial, Immunovant is moving on from the indication and looking to other high priority programs for the drug in neurology, endocrinology and rheumatology.
Tech darling Enveda has raised a total of $845 million in the past six years. The latest funding round is intended to pave the way for an IPO someday.
A late-stage test of Roche and Ionis Pharmaceuticals’ sefaxersen showed that the drug reduced protein in the urine, which suggests the RNA-targeting therapy could improve kidney function and delay transplant.
FDA
Novo plans to hit $23B in revenue by 2035, has further reduced its workforce by 4,000 and is boosting manufacturing capacity for its Wegovy pill, but investors are unconvinced it will be enough to turn things around; Viking Therapeutics and Roche report positive results for their weight loss assets; Ultragenyx snags FDA approval for its Sanfilippo syndrome gene therapy; IPOs keep on coming.
After achieving clinical validation earlier this year, ReCode Therapeutics has called up a new CEO to take on the mission of advancing programs for cystic fibrosis and primary ciliary dyskinesia through the clinic.
FDA
Citing the urgent unmet need for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer, Compass Therapeutics will continue to seek an approval path for its drug after the FDA recommended the biotech conduct a new clinical study.
While Vertex is laser-focused on an upcoming FDA decision for povetacicept in immunoglobulin A nephropathy, the APOL1 inhibitor inaxaplin has demonstrated potential “best-in-class” data in a different kidney disease.
Novo CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar disclosed an additional 4,000 staff departures, which a spokesperson told BioSpace are linked to attrition and other measures.
The mid-stage readout is one link in a chain of catalysts that analysts were watching for this year from Roche’s metabolic pipeline, which features assets from the $2.7 billion acquisition of Carmot Therapeutics as well as partner Zealand Pharma.
As Big Pharma adds AI technology to bolster drug development, a cadre of new, upstart biotechs are pushing drug discovery to new heights.
Novo has “gone shopping” to fill pipeline gaps, with a focus on obesity and diabetes, plus an expansion in blood and endocrine disorders, liver diseases and cardiovascular conditions.