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Annalee Armstrong

Senior Editor

Annalee Armstrong is an award-winning biopharma journalist covering the business of drug development. She 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.

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly both think the Wegovy pill is doing well, but the American rival sees the successful launch as a harbinger of good news for its own candidate, orforglipron, which is expected to hit the market in the second quarter.
Novo Nordisk CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar acknowledged the market pressure facing the company’s GLP-1 products but sought to assure investors that Novo has the situation under control.
After review, Amgen is certain that Tavneos is effective and has a favorable benefit-risk profile. The company informed the FDA on January 28 that they would not pull the drug.
Mounjaro and Zepbound combined for $11.7 billion in the fourth quarter, which beat analyst consensus of $10.6 billion.
Pfizer announces the first data from its Metsera-acquired pipeline just ahead of its earnings call, where analysts pressed execs for more details; Merck and Roche also released Q4 and full year earnings, with Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and others reporting Wednesday; REGENXBIO hits a regulatory snag ahead of its upcoming PDUFA; more.
Novo Nordisk beat analyst expectations for the fourth quarter, but the result was overshadowed by softened expectations for this year.
Analysts parsed the limited data available for Pfizer’s obesity candidate on the pharma’s fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday, looking for any nugget of additional context.
Sanofi will take venglustat to regulators for Gaucher disease but an application for Fabry disease is less clear after the failure of a Phase III trial.
AstraZeneca’s $15 billion pledge to its China operations highlights the country’s advantages. But other regions are also hoping to host more clinical studies.
The Senate failed to pass a massive spending bill on Thursday—which includes the rare pediatric PRV program but also funding for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s large-scale crackdown in Minnesota and other states.
Moderna will continue to lead clinical development and manufacturing of the asset, while Recordati will handle commercialization of mRNA-3927, which is under development for the rare metabolic disorder propionic acidemia.
Roche’s obesity candidate achieves 22.5% weight loss in Phase II; Moderna pulls the plug on late-stage vaccine trials as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine policies and rhetoric continues; and embattled gene therapy maker Sarepta announces new data in Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Roche said the Phase II results help build the case for advancing CT-388 into late-stage testing, which is set to get underway this quarter.
JPM
With the biopharma industry performing better of late, analysts, executives and other industry watchers are “cautiously optimistic”—a term heard all over the streets of San Francisco at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference earlier this month.
Investors are apparently taking bets on when Revolution will be acquired. A handful of pharmas could be interested as Merck backs off.