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BioNTech's Pandemic Hero Walks Away to Start Something New
Ugur Sahin, the scientist who shelved everything in January 2020 to build the world's first mRNA COVID vaccine in ten months, is stepping down as BioNTech CEO. He and his wife Ozlem Tureci are leaving together to launch an entirely new mRNA biotech, with BioNTech granting technology rights and taking a minority stake. Succeeding him by early 2027: Guido Oelkers, the Sobi chief who quadrupled that company's revenue over nine years through disciplined dealmaking. BioNTech now has over 25 Phase 2/3 oncology trials running and expects roughly 15 Phase 3 programs by end of 2026. The founder built the ship; the new CEO is being hired to sail it into harbor.
Why it matters: This marks the rare transition from visionary founder to commercial operator at a company attempting to pivot from pandemic windfall to top-tier oncology powerhouse, with billions in pipeline value riding on clinical readouts over the next 18 months.
Read more →Deals and M&A
Nuclear Medicine Gets Its Biggest Deal Ever: $8 Billion
A $7 billion company just swallowed an $8 billion one. Curium agreed to acquire Lantheus Holdings for up to $8 billion (including CVRs), creating the world's most complete radiopharmaceutical platform. The deal pairs Curium's global manufacturing muscle with Lantheus' U.S. diagnostic dominance, headlined by the blockbuster prostate cancer imaging agent PYLARIFY. Analysts don't expect a competing bid.
Read more →Two CNS Companies Merge Into a $2.2 Billion Brain and Addiction Powerhouse
Supernus and Indivior are stitching together via an all-stock merger of equals, combining ADHD and epilepsy drugs with SUBLOCADE's approximately 75% share of the long-acting opioid treatment market. The combined entity will carry 11 marketed products, roughly $2.2 billion in revenue, and leverage below 1x EBITDA. Closing expected Q4 2026.
Read more →GSK Walks Away From $2.2 Billion Neuro Deal After Clinical Failures
After both drugs flopped in clinical trials, GSK terminated its neurodegeneration partnership with Alector. Alector's stock now sits around $1.50, its market cap below what GSK paid for the option. The company is pivoting to early-stage brain-delivery technology with clinical data years away.
Read more →Clinical Trials and Pipeline
The Heart Drug That Worked Everywhere Except the Heart
AstraZeneca and Ionis' Wainua crushed it in nerve disease but flopped in a 1,432-patient Phase 3 trial for heart failure caused by the same rogue protein. The culprit: 57% of patients were already on effective stabilizers, leaving almost no room for add-on benefit. Alnylam now owns the gene-silencing lane in ATTR cardiomyopathy unopposed.
Read more →A Bone Cancer With No New Drug in 40 Years Just Got a Phase III Win
Hansoh Pharma's B7-H3 antibody-drug conjugate significantly extended progression-free survival in relapsed osteosarcoma, a pediatric cancer that hasn't seen a new treatment since the 1980s. It's the only B7-H3 ADC to clear Phase III in multiple tumor types. Full data are pending, but the regulatory path in China looks promising.
Read more →An Obesity Drug That Burns Fat and Spares Muscle Just Entered Phase 2
Wave Life Sciences began dosing its INHBE-silencing siRNA in seriously obese patients (BMI 35-50). Unlike GLP-1s, WVE-007 targets body composition: Phase 1 showed 14% visceral fat reduction with a 2% lean mass increase from a single dose. The potential for once- or twice-yearly dosing could differentiate it from weekly injectables.
Read more →First-Ever lncRNA Heart Drug Earns FDA Fast Track
Swiss biotech HAYA Therapeutics earned the first FDA Fast Track for a drug targeting long non-coding RNA in cardiac disease. HTX-001 silences a rogue genetic switch called WISPER to reprogram scarred heart cells in non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition with essentially no approved targeted therapies. Phase 1 dosing is underway.
Read more →Policy and Supply Chain
NIH Faces a Proposed 39% Budget Cut That Could Starve Biotech's Pipeline in 5 Years
A Senate hearing is examining what the administration's proposed near-40% NIH funding cut (to $27.9 billion from $47 billion) would mean for drug discovery. Every single one of 210 drugs approved from 2010 to 2016 traced back to NIH-funded research. By mid-2025, some 2,300 grants worth $2.45 billion had already been terminated, disrupting approximately 160 clinical trials.
Read more →Sandoz Writes a $450 Million Check to Make Price-Fixing Claims Disappear
The Swiss generics giant settled antitrust claims with 43 U.S. states over alleged drug price-fixing, bringing its total legal tab across criminal and civil cases well over $1 billion. The payment plan spreads $400 million over seven years starting in 2027, designed to clear the decks for Sandoz's post-Novartis growth strategy.
Read more →Amgen Pulls Nearly a Million Bottles of Heart Failure Drug Off Shelves
Quality inspectors found an unidentified foreign substance on tablet coatings of Corlanor manufactured at an Italian facility, triggering a recall of 934,577 bottles distributed since 2021. With reports the drug may be discontinued entirely, patients on this chronic heart failure therapy may need to transition to available generic ivabradine alternatives.
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