Original reporting and analysis on the stories shaping biotech.
A company that literally started with money from a Harvard professor's friends just smashed every biotech IPO record in the book. Here's why $670 million in a single day tells you everything about where biotech capital markets are headed.
For the first time, a Phase 3 trial proved an antibody-drug conjugate can replace brutal platinum chemotherapy in first-line lung cancer. Merck and Kelun-Biotech's sac-TMT just redrew the treatment map, and the timing couldn't be worse for Pfizer.
InnoCare's oral TYK2 inhibitor just posted strong Phase II results in vitiligo, a skin condition that went decades without an approved drug. With BMS, Takeda, and AbbVie all chasing the same prize, the race to deliver the first effective systemic pill is heating up fast.
AI drug discovery firm Chai Discovery and radiopharmaceutical developer AdvanCell raised a combined $715 million in back-to-back days, marking two of 2026's largest biotech venture rounds. The consecutive megadeals spotlight the two hottest investment themes in biotech and signal a broader funding thaw.
The Supreme Court just ruled that federal law blocks most Roundup cancer lawsuits, potentially wiping out 60,000+ pending claims in a landmark win for Bayer. The decision could reshape how mass tort litigation works for every chemical and drug company in America.
The FDA just rejected a liver cancer drug for the third consecutive time, and the reason has nothing to do with whether the drug actually works. Hengrui and Elevar's manufacturing woes are becoming a cautionary tale for every biotech relying on overseas factories.
Eli Lilly's new blood test matched the gold-standard brain scan for detecting Alzheimer's pathology in people with no symptoms. If a $500 blood draw can do the job of a $5,000 PET scan, the entire playbook for Alzheimer's screening is about to get rewritten.
Roche killed both of its Huntington's disease gene-silencing drugs after a decade of work, leaving patients without any approved disease-modifying treatment. The field isn't dead, but the biggest pharma player just left the building.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is spending $10 billion to buy Crinetics and build an entirely new endocrinology franchise. It's the company's biggest acquisition ever, and it comes with an approved acromegaly pill, a promising CAH candidate, and a whole lot of ambition.
Merck KGaA is dropping $11.3 billion to buy Bio-Techne, a life sciences tools company most people have never heard of but every biotech lab depends on. It's the German pharma giant's biggest deal in over a decade, and it says a lot about where the real money in biotech is headed.
Chinese pharma giant Hansoh just swallowed a $21 million Nasdaq shell company, stuffed it with $320 million in cash, and loaded in an oral pill that could disrupt the blockbuster IL-23 market. It's the boldest reverse-merger play in biotech this year.
Jasper Therapeutics was six months from running out of cash. Instead of folding, it engineered a three-party deal involving a reverse merger, $132 million in rescue financing, and a licensing play that could challenge a drug the FDA wants to pull from the market.
India just approved Wegovy for fatty liver disease, making it the second country to clear a GLP-1 drug for MASH. With nearly 40% of Indian adults affected by fatty liver and zero prior approved treatments, Novo Nordisk's latest label expansion could reshape both the Indian pharma market and the global MASH treatment landscape.
A small Chinese biotech just published Nature Medicine data showing a single spinal injection of an RNA drug silenced a disease gene in ALS patients for months. The biomarker numbers rival the only approved therapy, and the delivery platform could unlock treatments for a whole category of brain diseases.
AstraZeneca just dropped $200 million upfront (with $1.9 billion more on the table) for a Chinese-developed COPD drug that might outperform the one Merck paid $10 billion for. The deal is the latest sign that China's biopharma pipeline has become Big Pharma's favorite shopping mall.
Takeda's zasocitinib just posted Phase 3 psoriasis data that crushed its only direct rival and delivered biologic-level skin clearance from a once-daily pill. The $4 billion acquisition is looking very smart right now.
The team behind MyoKardia's $13.1 billion sale to Bristol Myers Squibb just reunited, renamed themselves Kardigan, and raised $400 million in one of 2026's largest biotech IPOs. Three heart disease drugs, zero approved competitors, and a very familiar playbook.
Italy's state lender just helped a family-owned pharma company spend $4.1 billion to buy its way into the U.S. rare disease market. It's one of the most unusual financing structures in recent pharma M&A history, and the stakes are enormous.
Eli Lilly is spending up to $3.8 billion to acquire psychedelics-focused AtaiBeckley, marking the largest Big Pharma bet ever on psychedelic medicine. The deal puts Lilly on a collision course with J&J's $2 billion Spravato franchise and signals that the psychedelics industry just graduated from fringe to pharma mainstream.
For a decade, the most powerful cholesterol drugs required injections, and most eligible patients never used them. Merck's LIPFENDRA just became the first oral PCSK9 inhibitor approved by the FDA, matching injectable-level potency in a once-daily pill at one-third the price.
Novartis's Fabhalta just converted its provisional FDA approval into the real thing, becoming the first complement inhibitor proven to protect kidney function in IgA nephropathy. The two-year data that sealed the deal are worth paying attention to.
For six years, Tepezza was the only FDA-approved drug for thyroid eye disease, pulling in nearly $2 billion a year. Viridian's newly approved Lumvoa just crashed the party, and the implications for patients, pricing, and Amgen's bottom line are bigger than the stock pop suggests.
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