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The FDA derives just under half of its yearly funding from pharma user fees, which help support its operations and fund employee salaries. An analysis from AgencyIQ suggests that the agency is dangerously close to losing it all.
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AbbVie’s Humira was the top-selling drug in the world for many years. Now, its sales are eroding as doctors switch to biosimilars and new options enter the market.
Biosimilars are essential healthcare equalizers, but their regulation is overly complicated due to lobbying by makers of branded biologics looking to maintain blockbuster revenue.
Since 2016, the FDA has approved three disease-modifying treatments for spinal muscular atrophy, with several companies—including Novartis, Scholar Rock and Biogen—progressing novel candidates through clinical trials.
Job Trends
CytomX’s workforce cuts could leave the biotech with fewer than 75 employees as it focuses resources on its wholly owned clinical-stage programs, most notably an antibody-drug conjugate for advanced metastatic colorectal cancer.
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This year saw lofty highs and devastating lows for neuroscience drug developers like Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and AbbVie, following the predictable pattern of successes and failures that characterizes this space.
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Cell therapy and oncology–focused Carisma Therapeutics started layoffs late last year. Now the company plans to wind down fully.
Merck continues to build the case for the pulmonary arterial hypertension drug that won FDA approval in 2024.
AIRNA’s lead candidate AIR-001 works by correcting the most common pathologic mutation driving the rare disease alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.
Analysts at financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald are urging President Donald Trump to rethink his appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The layoffs will take place throughout 2025 and will mostly affect Tenaya’s research and manufacturing operations. The company is continuing to test its hypertrophic cardiomyopathy gene therapy.
Despite a $400 million impairment charge, analysts say the removal of a drug-device combo from its portfolio is not a huge loss for Vertex given that the company has a more advanced type 1 diabetes candidate in zimislecel.
The stock market—and biotech insiders—reacted negatively to the allegedly forced resignation of CBER Director Peter Marks, who said RFK Jr. does not seek “truth and transparency” but rather “subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”
Unlike other hemophilia therapies, Qfitlia is indicated for both hemophilia A and B, and can be given in patients regardless of the presence of neutralizing antibodies against clotting factor VIII or IX.
BMO Capital Markets analysts said the results potentially position lepodisiran as “one of the most durable assets in development to date” in the competitive Lp(a) space, where drugs are designed to lower the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke.
Ayrmid’s offer is 50% higher than bluebird’s previously announced deal with Carlyle and SK Capital Partners.