Novartis
NEWS
After bringing Zolgensma to market in 2019 as the first gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy, Novartis is back with an intrathecal formulation intended for older patients.
Merck’s Keytruda may be the most talked about drug facing loss of exclusivity but it’s far from the only one, as several of the industry’s top-performers are losing key market protections. Some companies are more prepared than others.
The FDA is mired in uncertainty with some staffers losing their jobs over the weekend and more potentially to come, vaccines and psychedelic therapies could be facing very different futures under newly confirmed HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Moderna continues its downward revenue slide and Merck, Regeneron, BMS and more face strong patent headwinds.
Novartis is paying $925 million upfront to acquire Anthos Therapeutics, whose launch the pharma backed in February 2019.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS nomination moves to a full Senate vote; Donald Trump’s tariff war sparks China-related concerns for biopharma; Pfizer, Merck and more announce Q4 and 2024 earnings; and the non-opioid painkiller space heats up as FDA approves Vertex’s Jounavx.
Faced with the encroaching threats of patent expirations and generics, biopharma companies in 2024 invested 33% more in licensing deals, on average, than in 2023 with an eye toward enriching their pipelines with novel and potentially more effective therapies.
Novartis was among the most prolific pharma dealmakers in 2024, a trend that it expects to continue with more bolt-on deals this year to set up for sustainable long-term growth.
The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference started off with a flurry of deals that reinvigorated excitement across the biopharma industry. Johnson & Johnson moved to acquire Intra-Cellular Therapies for $14.6 billion, breaking a dealmaking barrier that kept Big Pharma’s 2024 biotech buyouts to under $5 billion.
Novartis is locked in a legal back-and-forth with MSN Pharma over alleged patent infringement of its heart failure drug Entresto.
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