Past Issues
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Lilly built the best weight-loss drug ever. It still might not be enough.
The most powerful obesity drug in history just posted surgical-level weight loss, then whiffed on the one thing insurers actually care about. Meanwhile, AbbVie wrote an $11 billion check for a company that didn't exist three years ago, and a sure-thing heart drug bombed its final exam.
The FDA just approved a 5th drug for a cancer that hits 2% of patients
A fifth targeted therapy just landed for one of the rarest lung cancer subtypes, and the brain data alone are worth your attention. Meanwhile, Congress is rewriting the rules on animal testing, the Senate wants to cap pharma's patent tricks, and Roche killed a lupus drug only to double down on something bigger.
An off-the-shelf CAR-T just did the impossible in solid tumors
For a decade, cell therapy has slammed into the same wall: solid tumors. An allogeneic CAR-T just punched through it with durable remissions lasting over 18 months, and the implications reach far beyond kidney cancer. Also today: the Alzheimer's drug that escaped the infusion chair, Novo suing Lilly over a TV ad, and the FDA's messy attempt to rebuild itself.
Tempus just dropped $1.5B to own cancer's data layer. Both stocks tanked.
Tempus AI wants to be the Netflix of oncology data, and it's paying $1.5 billion in stock to get there. Meanwhile, the GLP-1 giants are literally suing each other, a fugitive was running a NASDAQ biotech's clinical program, and a 50-year drought in rare eye disease just ended.
BMS just bought a supercomputer that costs more than most startups
Big Pharma's AI arms race just went from metaphor to metal. Bristol Myers Squibb leapfrogged Eli Lilly by buying NVIDIA's newest-generation AI supercomputer, while halfway around the world, India finally approved its first-ever dengue vaccine after decades of waiting. It's a big news day; let's get into it.
A guided missile just replaced carpet-bomb chemo in lung cancer
For the first time ever, a Phase 3 trial proved an antibody-drug conjugate can swap out platinum chemotherapy in frontline lung cancer. That alone would be enough for one newsletter, but we've also got the biggest biotech IPO in history, an FDA rejection hat trick, and a Supreme Court ruling that just vaporized 60,000 lawsuits.
The $11.3B bet on a company you've never heard of (but your lab depends on)
Germany's Merck KGaA just dropped $11.3 billion on the company that quietly supplies every biotech lab in the world, while Vertex wrote a $10 billion check to master a fifth disease. Somewhere between the mega-deals and a blood test that could replace a brain scan, today's issue is stacked.
The cholesterol pill that could kill the needle just got FDA approval
Merck just landed the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor, turning a decade of injectable-only cholesterol therapy on its head. Meanwhile, Eli Lilly dropped $3.8 billion on a psychedelics company, the FDA carpet-bombed 25 telehealth firms over knockoff Ozempic, and Jennifer Doudna used AI to build gene-editing enzymes that nature never imagined.
AbbVie just wrote a $10.9B check for a drug that won't pay off until 2032
AbbVie dropped its biggest acquisition in five years on a clinical-stage biotech with one molecule and zero revenue. Meanwhile, the FDA created an entirely new category of cell therapy, Sarepta is in full crisis mode after two patient deaths, and the only drug that prevents congenital syphilis just got pulled from shelves. Buckle up.
A $10M drug just turned a tiny biotech into a $6B cancer player
A Minnesota clinical-stage biotech bought a shelved Pfizer drug for pocket change in 2021. Five years later, it just got FDA approval, the stock is up roughly 600%, and the acquisition rumors are already writing themselves. Meanwhile, Biogen is betting billions on an Alzheimer's drug that technically failed its trial, and the FDA just published a literal rulebook for running clinical trials on psychedelics.
Roche just knocked out both KRAS rivals in a single Phase 3 trial
Roche's divarasib beat Amgen's sotorasib and BMS's adagrasib head-to-head in lung cancer, hitting both survival endpoints in what might be the most decisive showdown in oncology this year. Meanwhile, the FDA paused drug rejection letters after a citizen petition, China's drug deals surged, and a hair-loss drug rose from the dead.
A CRISPR cure now works on 2-year-olds. The catch: $2.2 million.
The FDA just cleared a gene therapy that could cure sickle cell disease before a toddler starts kindergarten, but the price tag and chemo conditioning make "who actually gets this" a harder question than "does it work." Meanwhile, the agency is simultaneously making it easier to build drugs for one patient and harder to predict whether it'll approve anything at all.
Uncle Sam bets $160M that gene editing can work like a software update
The federal government just launched its most ambitious bet yet on turning bespoke gene-editing therapies into something scalable, affordable, and real. Meanwhile, an Ebola strain nobody has a vaccine for just infected an American doctor, AstraZeneca's gene-silencing drug aced every biological test and still failed, and the GLP-1 price war is getting ruthless.
Pharma giants just caved on drug pricing. Here's what they actually agreed to.
The White House threatened tariffs on imported drugs and some of the world's biggest pharma companies said "fine, we'll cut prices." But the fine print tells a very different story than the headlines. Meanwhile, a cancer that kills most patients within a year just got some genuinely good news.
Pills just got a 100% tariff. The escape hatches are wild.
The Trump administration dropped the biggest tariff in pharmaceutical history: 100% on imported brand-name drugs. But the real story isn't the sticker shock; it's the tiered system of deal-making that could reshape where, how, and at what price every major drug company does business. Plus, the world's best-selling drug just met its first copycat with Phase 3 data to back it up.
The $459M drug whose foundational study just got erased from history
A blockbuster vasculitis drug just lost the paper that got it approved, GSK walked away from $700 million in Alzheimer's wreckage, and a gene-editing patent fight redrew the CRISPR map. It's a big day for uncomfortable truths in biotech.
Intellia just paused two CRISPR trials. The one-shot cure era has a problem.
A life-threatening liver toxicity case forced clinical holds on two of the most advanced in vivo CRISPR programs ever run, and the ripple effects go far beyond one company. Meanwhile, a kidney disease that had zero treatments three years ago now has its latest approval, Novo Nordisk and Hims went from courtroom enemies to business partners, and the FDA is losing staff faster than it can review drugs.
Vertex just dropped $10B on a body part nobody talks about
Vertex paid a 102% premium to buy its way into endocrinology, Gilead and Novartis went on dueling ADC shopping sprees totaling $6.5 billion, and Sarepta's flagship gene therapy got the FDA's scariest label. It's a reshuffling kind of week in biotech.
An $8 curtain, a rented lab corner, and a $2.3B Regeneron deal
Regeneron wrote a $2.3 billion check for a company that once protected its equipment with a floral curtain from a safety shower. Meanwhile, Roche just challenged two KRAS rivals to a fight and walked away with both belts. It's that kind of week.
Tepezza's $1.9B monopoly just got its first real competitor
A six-year stranglehold on thyroid eye disease treatment officially cracked open this week, and the ripple effects will reshape a nearly $2 billion market. Meanwhile, Anthropic wants to discover drugs, Roche is picking a fight with Illumina, and a CAR-T breakthrough might finally solve the solid-tumor problem.
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