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Merck's Keytruda Problem Just Forced Big Pharma's Boldest Reorganization in Years
Merck is splitting its entire Human Health division into two standalone businesses: one for cancer, one for everything else. The reason? Keytruda, the world's best-selling drug at roughly $29.5 billion in 2024 revenue, loses its primary U.S. patent in December 2028. Biosimilar competitors from Sandoz, Amgen, and others are already lining up, and analysts project a 23% revenue drop in 2029 alone. Merck's counterpunch includes a subcutaneous reformulation (Keytruda QLEX), about 80 Phase 3 trials, and a $70 billion revenue target for the mid-2030s.
Why it matters: This is Big Pharma's playbook for surviving the post-blockbuster era. When one drug props up half your business, reorganizing isn't optional; it's existential. The Abbott/AbbVie split in 2013 proved the model can work, and Merck is betting the same logic applies to the biggest patent cliff in pharma history.
Read more →Clinical Wins
BMS's $800M Bet on a Chinese Cancer Drug Just Cleared Its Biggest Hurdle
A cancer drug licensed from a little-known Chinese biotech just hit both survival endpoints in triple-negative breast cancer, the deadliest form of the disease. Izalontamab brengitecan is the first bispecific ADC (a guided missile that locks onto two tumor targets instead of one) to pull off that feat. It's now notched three Phase 3 wins total, and BMS's deal could reach $8.4 billion in milestones. Full data is being saved for a medical conference, so the magnitude of the benefit remains to be seen.
Read more →Dupixent Collects FDA Approval Number Nine, This Time for a Condition That Never Had a Drug
Dupixent just became the first drug ever approved for allergic fungal rhinosinusitis, a condition where the immune system attacks fungal spores in the sinuses badly enough to erode bone. Trial results were striking: a 92% reduction in the need for surgery or steroids. That's ninth FDA indication for Sanofi and Regeneron's blockbuster since 2017, further cementing its status as the Swiss Army knife of type 2 inflammation.
Read more →Deals & Financings
A New $130M Startup Thinks CGRP Isn't the Only Way to Prevent Migraines
Slate Medicines launched with $130 million to target PACAP, a brain protein that triggers migraines through a completely different pathway than every existing preventive drug. The science is bolstered by Lundbeck's recent positive Phase 2 results against the same target. Slate's drug is still preclinical, so this is a years-long bet, but for patients who don't respond to CGRP therapies, a credible Plan B is finally taking shape.
Read more →BioMarin Pulls Its Gene Therapy After Almost Nobody Bought It
Roctavian, the first gene therapy for severe hemophilia A, is being withdrawn from the market. Not for safety reasons; BioMarin simply couldn't find buyers or even another company willing to take the product off its hands. Combined with Pfizer pulling its own hemophilia gene therapy (which dosed zero commercial patients), the retreat raises a pointed question: can one-time curative treatments ever work as a business?
Read more →Science & Discovery
Three Unrelated Viruses Found the Same Kill Switch in Bacteria. Scientists Want to Copy It.
Caltech researchers discovered that three evolutionarily unrelated viruses independently evolved to attack the same bacterial protein, MurJ, which builds the cell wall that keeps bacteria alive. Because MurJ doesn't exist in human cells, it's a near-perfect antibiotic target. With only 15 truly innovative antibiotics in clinical development globally, this Nature paper could seed an entirely new drug class against resistant superbugs.
Read more →Cambridge Scientists Built Custom Rooms Inside Bacteria Using Self-Assembling RNA
Bacteria are single-room apartments: no internal compartments, everything floating in one chaotic soup. Cambridge researchers just changed that by engineering four-armed RNA "nanostars" that self-assemble into programmable compartments inside living E. coli. The structures can corral specific proteins on demand and dissolve with temperature changes. If the platform scales, it could bring unprecedented spatial control to how we manufacture therapeutic proteins.
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