Vertex Pharmaceuticals
NEWS
Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ investigational non-opioid analgesic suzetrigine failed to outperform placebo. Investors voiced their concerns as the company’s share price fell 13% in premarket trading.
By far, the largest acquisition of 2024 was Novo Holdings’ yet-to-be-closed buyout of manufacturer Catalent at $16.5 billion. Outside of that, the leading pharmaceutical companies kept to less than $5 billion per deal.
GSK, Gilead and Arcellx, Vertex and more present new data at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting just as sickle cell therapies Casgevy and Lyfgenia have a new outcomes-based payment model; Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk pump new funds into manufacturing; and AbbVie makes a Cerevel comeback while uniQure clears a path toward accelerated approval in Huntington’s disease.
Vertex unveiled long-term durability data for Casgevy, while Beam presented Phase I/II findings for its investigational base editor BEAM-101, building up to a BLA by late 2026.
The payment scheme will tie gene therapy payments to improvements in health outcomes—and could potentially boost the uptake of these sickle cell disease treatments.
Eli Lilly topped the list of the 20 biggest pharmas by market cap with a more than 39% improvement year-to-date in its share price. Other companies have not been so lucky.
Massachusetts’ increased investment in the life sciences industry includes boosting its life sciences tax incentive program by $10 million annually, aiding job creation in the state.
Coming off of a strong third quarter, Vertex Pharmaceuticals is nearing several important milestones, including the potential approvals of vanzacaftor triple in cystic fibrosis and the non-opioid therapy suzetrigine in pain—both slated for January 2025.
William Blair analyst Myles Minter in a Monday note to investors said that Vertex’s povetacicept “has maintained its potential to be a best-in-class asset” in the IgA nephropathy space and could become a “multibillion-dollar pipeline-in-a-drug product” for autoimmune disorders, while “outstanding questions” remain for Biogen’s felzartamab before moving into pivotal studies.
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