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Genmab Drops $8 Billion on a Cancer Drug It Hasn't Fully Test-Driven Yet
Genmab is acquiring Merus for $8 billion in cash, paying a 41% premium for the Dutch biotech and its crown jewel: petosemtamab, a bispecific antibody for head and neck cancer. The catch? Phase 3 data hasn't read out yet. Genmab is essentially betting billions on Phase 2 results from just 43 patients, where petosemtamab combined with pembrolizumab produced a 63% response rate, nearly doubling the bar for this notoriously tough cancer. The deal, funded partly with $5.5 billion in new debt, signals Genmab's shift from licensing its technology to owning the commercial endgame.
Why it matters: This is the largest pure-play biotech acquisition of the year and marks Genmab's transformation from a platform licensing company into a fully integrated oncology player, with enormous upside if the Phase 3 delivers and enormous risk if it doesn't.
Read more →Deals and M&A
Lilly Bets $2.3 Billion on a Drug Class Everyone Wrote Off
Eli Lilly is paying up to $2.3 billion for Ajax Therapeutics and its next-gen JAK inhibitor, AJ1-11095, which targets JAK2 in its inactive state to overcome resistance that hobbles older drugs. After the FDA slapped boxed warnings on the entire JAK class in 2021, most investors moved on. Lilly clearly hasn't; this is part of a $10 billion-plus immunology shopping spree over two years.
Read more →GSK Pays $110M for a KRAS Drug That Hasn't Treated a Single Patient
GSK dropped $110 million upfront (up to $1.3 billion total) to license HUTCHMED's HMPL-A830, a Phase 1 KRAS-targeting therapy that combines KRAS inhibition with EGFR blockade in a single molecule. With roughly 50 KRAS programs industrywide, GSK decided standing on the sidelines was riskier than buying in early.
Read more →Shanghai's Biotech City Is Now Big Pharma's Favorite Shopping Mall
Chinese biotechs have been inking billions in Western pharma deals, with Shanghai's Zhangjiang Science City emerging as a major hub. Average upfront payments on Chinese biotech deals have tripled since 2022, hitting $172 million. This isn't bargain hunting anymore; it's Big Pharma flying to Shanghai and standing in line.
Read more →Clinical and Pipeline
Zero Approved Drugs, One Real Contender: Lupus Skin Disease Gets a Breakthrough
Biogen's litifilimab posted 52-week data showing skin-clearing responses in cutaneous lupus actually improved over time, with 27.2% of patients achieving clear or almost clear skin (up from 19% at six months). It's the first drug built specifically for a condition where patients have been borrowing treatments from other diseases for decades. Phase 3 results are expected in early 2027.
Read more →Genmab's Ovarian Cancer ADC Posts a 46% Response Rate Where Chemo Barely Hits 15%
Rinatabart sesutecan delivered a 45.9% response rate in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, with median responses lasting over a year. Standard chemo in this setting barely cracks 15%. Just 5.5% of patients dropped out due to side effects, a clean safety profile that sets it apart from competing ADCs.
Read more →The Obesity Wars
China Just Crashed the Obesity Drug Duopoly
Hansoh Pharmaceutical's olatorepatide posted 19.3% weight loss at 48 weeks in Phase 3, putting it squarely in tirzepatide territory, and the weight loss curve wasn't done climbing. China now has roughly 12 GLP-1 drugs in Phase 3. The Novo-Lilly two-horse race just got a lot more crowded.
Read more →Zepbound Gets a Price Tag That Could Crack the Market Wide Open
Eli Lilly will sell Zepbound in single-dose vials starting at $299 a month, regardless of insurance status. That's a steep discount from list prices that have kept millions of patients locked out. Lilly is betting that the volume math works: thinner margins per patient, but a dramatically bigger patient pool.
Read more →Regulatory and Policy
The FDA Just Built an Office Because China Is Catching Up
The FDA stood up a new Office of Innovation and Clinical Trial Modernization, explicitly motivated by China's accelerating drug development machine. China now approves more novel oncology drugs annually than the U.S., and its IND review timeline collapsed from 60 working days to 30 working days for eligible innovative drugs. The agency's two-track strategy: speed up domestic trials while tightening scrutiny on foreign clinical data.
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