Past Issues
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The FDA just approved a drug class that didn't exist until yesterday
A brand-new class of cancer drugs just got its first-ever FDA approval, and it's not just a win for myeloma patients. Meanwhile, Sarepta's gene therapy dream is unraveling in real time, Lilly is waging a pricing war against its own black market, and someone just bought a gene therapy out of bankruptcy court for pennies on the dollar.
Vertex just wrote a $10B check for a company you've probably never heard of
Vertex dropped its biggest acquisition ever on an endocrinology company most people couldn't pick out of a lineup. Meanwhile, J&J reserved the right to buy a startup for $2.58 billion, Gilead kept shopping, and the biotech IPO market officially went from comatose to carnival. Buckle up.
The White House just rewrote your kid's shot card. Merck has questions.
The president slashed the childhood vaccine schedule from 18 disease targets to 11 by executive order, bypassing the scientists who've managed it for decades. Meanwhile, the FDA built a whole new regulatory pathway for drugs that treat exactly one person, an LSD-derived anxiety pill aced its second Phase 3, and the biggest radiopharmaceutical deal in history just dropped.
Eli Lilly just spent $3.8B on psychedelics. The suits are on the bus.
Big pharma's most buttoned-up company just wrote the biggest check the psychedelic therapy space has ever seen. Meanwhile, two CNS rivals merged into a $2.2 billion brain drug empire, and the biotech IPO market is partying like it's 2021 (almost).
Lilly just dropped $7B to turn your body into a CAR-T factory
Eli Lilly wrote two checks totaling $9.3 billion this week, and neither one was for an obesity drug. The company is building a genetic medicines empire at breakneck speed, and it's not the only pharma giant shopping. Today's issue covers five major acquisitions, a CRISPR breakthrough for toddlers, and a U.S. probe that could redraw the biotech map with China.
Intellia's CRISPR safety scare just sent shockwaves through gene editing
The company farthest ahead in editing genes inside the human body hit a wall when a patient's liver got hammered in a late-stage trial. The FDA stepped in, and now every CRISPR company is feeling the heat. Meanwhile, one melanoma drug proved that the third time really is the charm, and a tiny biotech showed the first evidence a gene editor can destroy hepatitis B's hidden reservoir.
A 100% tariff on imported drugs just landed. Your pharmacy bill might notice.
The White House just dropped the most aggressive trade action the pharmaceutical industry has ever seen, and the ripple effects touch everything from your insurance premiums to where the next cancer drug gets manufactured. Meanwhile, mRNA technology officially proved it's not a one-hit wonder, and Big Pharma went on a multibillion-dollar shopping spree.
GSK just wired $10.6B for two cancer drugs that haven't made a single dollar
GSK wrote its biggest check in over a decade for two lung cancer drugs that don't have FDA approval yet, and it wasn't even the wildest story of the day. An AI-designed psoriasis pill just humiliated its biggest rival by a factor of 2.5, the first new class of ADHD drug in decades got the green light, and hackers breached something far scarier than corporate emails at Novo Nordisk.
The FDA just tore up the clinical trial playbook. Here's what replaces it.
The FDA dropped its most sweeping overhaul of clinical trial rules in decades, and the implications touch every biotech with an IND on file or in the works. Meanwhile, Vertex bet $10 billion on a company most people have never heard of, a court told pharma it can invent at whatever pace it wants, and the industry's favorite bellwether just confirmed the funding winter is thawing.
The scientist who saved the world just quit BioNTech
The man who read one journal article about a mystery virus and launched the fastest vaccine development in history is leaving the company he built. Meanwhile, nuclear medicine just got its biggest deal ever, and a 40-year drought in bone cancer treatment may finally be over.
AstraZeneca wants to merge with BMS and Wall Street is begging them not to
The biggest pharma deal in history might also be the worst idea in pharma history, at least according to AstraZeneca's own shareholders. Meanwhile, J&J just bet $2.58 billion on a therapy that hasn't touched a single patient, and a weight-loss drug accidentally aced an alcohol addiction trial.
One dose of LSD just posted the best depression data anyone's ever seen
An LSD-derived pill beat every approved antidepressant in a Phase 3 trial, and it only takes a single dose. Meanwhile, CRISPR gene editing just cleared its biggest regulatory hurdle yet, a tiny biotech embarrassed AbbVie's $18 billion drug, and the FDA is overhauling how clinical trials work from the ground up.
BMS just dropped $15B on 13 Chinese drugs. Washington is watching.
Bristol Myers Squibb signed the largest China-to-global biopharma deal ever, and it's not the only mega-deal rewriting the rules this week. From a CAR-T therapy that builds itself inside patients to Novartis paying $1.1 billion for a drug that's never touched a human, the dealmaking is relentless and the science is wild.
Scientists just edited a human embryo without cutting its DNA
For the first time, researchers swapped individual DNA letters in a human embryo using base editing, no scissors required. Meanwhile, the FDA wants to watch clinical trials in real time, a tiny German biotech is ditching viruses from CAR-T manufacturing, and Eli Lilly found a clever way to make Zepbound cheaper without actually lowering the price.
An FDA panel just rejected a Duchenne heart therapy 9 to 3
An FDA advisory committee delivered a brutal vote against the only cell therapy designed for Duchenne heart disease, and the company's statistical homework is getting most of the blame. Meanwhile, a scrappy eye drug finally won approval on its fourth try, and a cancer therapy is quietly learning to treat autoimmune disease.
Eli Lilly just spent $3.8B to bet that psychedelics can fix depression
Big Pharma's largest-ever psychedelic deal just landed, and it might reshape how we think about mental health treatment. Meanwhile, GSK is torching $2.5 billion (on purpose), the only drug that prevents congenital syphilis is getting harder to find, and the FDA keeps losing the people who approve your drugs.
Vertex just wrote a $10B check for a company making $10.7M a quarter
Vertex doubled the sticker price on Crinetics and called it a deal. Meanwhile, the FDA quietly stopped telling the public why it rejects drugs, Roche walked away from Huntington's after about a decade, and a 40-year-old "undruggable" protein finally met its match.
The cancer therapy that wasn't supposed to work in solid tumors just did
An off-the-shelf CAR-T therapy just posted durable remissions in solid tumors for the first time ever, and some of those responses are still going past 18 months. Meanwhile, GSK lit $700 million on fire in neuroscience, Europe approved a flu-COVID combo shot, and two startups grabbed $715 million in the same week.
Merck KGaA just spent $11.3B on a company you've probably never heard of
The biggest life sciences tools deal of the year just landed, and it's not about a drug. Meanwhile, Europe pulled the plug on a $3.7 billion acquisition's crown jewel over forged clinical data, and two startups claim they can make human eggs from a blood draw. Wednesday is not messing around.
The FDA is sitting on the first new kind of ADHD drug in years
A genuinely novel ADHD medication just hit its FDA deadline, and nobody's heard a word. Meanwhile, scientists are testing whether you can kill cancer before it even starts, and Genentech found $490 million for a new deal the same week it handed out 103 pink slips.
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