Past Issues
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The FDA just named names in its war on cheap Ozempic knockoffs
The FDA went full enforcement mode on compounded GLP-1 drugs, calling out Hims & Hers by name and threatening seizures. Meanwhile, Roche crashed the obesity party with a weight-loss number that has Eli Lilly looking over its shoulder.
Novo's next-gen obesity drug just lost the one fight it couldn't afford to lose
Novo Nordisk's CagriSema was supposed to dethrone Zepbound. Instead, it got dethroned. That head-to-head loss is the headline, but today's newsletter is stacked: Takeda's $4 billion acquisition bet just paid off spectacularly, Genentech fired a scientific legend, and the FDA is dismantling the cheap Ozempic market one warning letter at a time.
A biotech you've never heard of just raised $670M in the largest VC-backed IPO ever
A Cambridge cancer biotech most people couldn't name walked onto the Nasdaq and shattered every IPO record in the book, one day after landing a $2.3 billion Regeneron deal. Meanwhile, Takeda embarrassed Bristol Myers in a head-to-head psoriasis showdown, Novo's top scientist admitted the quiet part out loud about Lilly's obesity lead, and scientists discovered your Ozempic might be growing a tiny antidepressant factory in your gut.
The "undruggable" cancer target just got cracked: survival nearly doubled
A gene that scientists called untouchable for 40 years just produced one of the most jaw-dropping survival results in recent oncology history. That's just the opener: today's issue covers a two-in-one drug that beat immunotherapy's gold standard, the Pentagon dropping a bomb on biotech's biggest supplier, and evidence that Ozempic might fight cancer.
GSK just wrote a $10.6B check for two cancer drugs that don't exist yet
GSK is betting its next decade on two unapproved lung cancer drugs, and the price tag has Wall Street wincing. Meanwhile, a dead-on-arrival HIV pill just posted Phase 3 results, pancreatic cancer got a 92% response rate nobody expected, and kids with diabetes can finally skip the needle.
Roche just paid $700M for a drug that destroys proteins instead of blocking them
Roche dropped the biggest check in targeted protein degradation history, and it might mark the moment this entire drug class graduated from lab experiment to real medicine. Meanwhile, a Shanghai biotech just got the green light for something CAR-T has never pulled off: a randomized trial in solid tumors.
Novo's secret weapon lost the obesity Super Bowl. Stock cratered ~16%.
Novo Nordisk's next-gen obesity drug CagriSema was supposed to dethrone Zepbound. Instead, it lost the head-to-head trial and wiped out years of stock gains in a single day. Meanwhile, ADA 2026 turned into a full-blown arms race, with Lilly, Pfizer, and Roche all unveiling new weight-loss data that's pushing the market into uncharted territory.
The first drug that destroys its target just got FDA approval
A 25-year-old scientific idea just became a real prescription. The FDA approved the first-ever PROTAC drug, a molecule that tricks cancer cells into shredding their own growth machinery. Meanwhile, a $4 semaglutide syringe launched in India, Roche accused Washington of "cold-blooded blackmail," and a single lawsuit wiped out an entire year of Takeda's profit.
The Supreme Court just blew open the door for cheaper generics
The highest court in the land unanimously told brand drugmakers to stop suing generics for following the rules Congress wrote. Meanwhile, the FDA wants to watch your clinical trial like a live sports broadcast, and a new bill could make your China biotech deal illegal overnight.
Regeneron doubles a $2B bet most of biotech had written off
A big pharma company just walked back to a table that everyone else had abandoned, doubling its check to $4 billion. Meanwhile, the RNAi king admitted it needs an AI co-pilot, Germany scared off $2 billion in pharma investment with a single reform bill, and China's biotech sector stopped being a sideshow at ASCO and started running the main stage.
Lilly just paid $1.9B for a gene fix that never touches your DNA
Two of the world's five largest pharma companies have now written billion-dollar checks for the same RNA editing platform nobody was talking about two years ago. Meanwhile, Legend Biotech showed it can build cancer-killing cells inside a patient's body with a single injection, and CRISPR just cleared its biggest clinical hurdle yet. Buckle up.
No drug has beaten Gleevec in over two decades. GSK thinks that's about to change.
A cancer drug that's reigned unchallenged since its approval for advanced GIST in 2002 might finally have a worthy opponent, and GSK committed up to $1.15 billion just to get in the ring. Meanwhile, two multibillion-dollar deals are reshaping the autoimmune and muscular dystrophy landscapes.
A lung cancer drug just cut the risk of death by 34%. The catch? It's complicated.
ASCO 2026 is delivering the kind of data that makes oncologists spill their coffee. A bispecific antibody outperformed the king of immunotherapy in lung cancer, a pancreatic cancer drug doubled survival for the first time ever, and BioNTech decided to burn its pandemic empire to the ground. Buckle up.
Analysts called this CAR-T data 'nutty.' Lilly's $3.2B bet is paying off.
ASCO 2026 is delivering the goods. Eli Lilly's in vivo CAR-T therapy just posted a perfect 18-for-18 response rate, a pair of pharma giants made opposite bets on how to dethrone Keytruda, and Gilead finally showed the world the data behind its $3.15 billion acquisition. It's a big week, so let's get into it.
BMS just wrote a $600M check for 13 drugs that don't exist yet
Bristol Myers Squibb is betting up to $15.2 billion on a portfolio of preclinical drugs from China's Hengrui Medicine. Meanwhile, BMS also showed up to ASCO with data that doubled survival in blood cancer patients, two biotechs raised half a billion in a single IPO day, and AstraZeneca is trying to get drugs approved after failing their own trials. It's a lot.
Pfizer just ordered 12 mystery drugs from a Chinese biotech for $10 billion
Pfizer dropped $650 million upfront on a dozen unnamed cancer drugs from a Chinese biotech most Americans have never heard of, right as Congress pushes to restrict exactly these kinds of deals. Meanwhile, the "undruggable" protein behind pancreatic cancer just got drugged, and ASCO 2026 is delivering fireworks across oncology.
A cancer so rare most doctors never see it just got its second-ever drug
The FDA just approved a new weapon against a blood cancer that kills most patients within a year, and it works completely differently from the only other option. Meanwhile, GSK might have cracked the code on curing hepatitis B, and a tiny Korean biotech is putting up liver disease numbers that should make Novo Nordisk nervous.
A company that didn't exist 3 years ago just got $1.3B without selling a share
A clinical-stage biotech with zero approved drugs just landed one of the largest non-dilutive financings in the industry's history, and the structure is as interesting as the number. Meanwhile, Congress is eyeing legislation that could choke off pharma's hottest pipeline source, and the FDA finally killed the most hated rule in dermatology.
Eli Lilly just bought three vaccine companies in one day. Here's why.
The company that turned a diabetes drug into the obesity revolution just dropped $3.8 billion on vaccines it's never made before. Meanwhile, the FDA is quietly reinventing how it watches clinical trials, inspects factories, and thinks about AI, all in the same week.
India's biggest pharma company just bet $11.75B on a stock nobody wanted
An Indian generics giant just wrote the largest overseas check in Indian pharma history, buying a company that had zero Buy ratings on Wall Street. Meanwhile, the FDA approved a drug 25 years in the making, and Eli Lilly keeps converting its GLP-1 cash into billion-dollar bets on the future of medicine.
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