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Lilly Spent $7 Billion to Skip the Hardest Part of Cancer Treatment
Eli Lilly is acquiring Kelonia Therapeutics for up to $7 billion to gain a platform that builds CAR-T cancer cells directly inside patients' bodies, no extraction, no lab, no weeks of waiting. It's Lilly's second massive in vivo CAR-T deal in two months, following the $2.4 billion Orna buy in February. The combined $9.4 billion bet across two distinct delivery systems is funded by GLP-1 blockbuster revenue. Early Phase 1 data showed all four patients achieved no detectable cancer, though that sample size is tiny and durability remains unproven.
Why it matters: Lilly's back-to-back acquisitions, combined with over $5.25 billion in similar deals from AbbVie, AstraZeneca, BMS, and Gilead in 2025 alone, confirm that in vivo cell engineering is becoming big pharma's top strategic priority for the next generation of cancer treatment.
Read more →Deals and Partnerships
Biogen Drops $850M to Complete a Global Puzzle
Biogen paid up to $850 million to grab Greater China rights to felzartamab, a kidney disease antibody it already controlled everywhere else. The deal with TJ Biopharma consolidates worldwide rights under one roof. Only $100 million is upfront; the rest hinges on commercial milestones. Cross-border China pharma deals have surged in recent years, with Q1 2026 alone clocking $60 billion in deal value.
Read more →Biotech's Most Expensive Dead End Claims Another Victim
Gilead is letting key option rights in its Arcus Biosciences partnership lapse after their TIGIT drug domvanalimab failed yet another Phase 3 trial. The STAR-121 lung cancer study was halted for futility. Roche, Merck, and GSK have all watched their TIGIT bets collapse too, making the checkpoint target one of the costliest dead ends in cancer research history.
Read more →Science and Discovery
Flagship Built a New Kind of Drug (Between mRNA and Gene Therapy)
The firm behind Moderna just unveiled Serif Biomedicines, backed by $50 million, claiming a new drug category called Modified DNA. The pitch: protein expression that lasts longer than mRNA but doesn't permanently rewrite your genome like gene therapy. Preclinical primate data shows sustained gene expression after IV dosing. No clinical trials yet, but over 20 patent families protect the platform.
Read more →Clinical Setbacks
A Cancer-Killing Virus Just Took Down a Whole Company
Replimune slashed 60% of its workforce (63 employees) after the FDA rejected its oncolytic virus RP1 for the second time. The agency questioned whether the virus added anything when given alongside an already-approved cancer drug. With zero revenue and roughly $247 million in annual losses, the company is racing to survive long enough for a Phase 3 trial readout.
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