Original reporting and analysis on the stories shaping biotech.
AstraZeneca just dropped $200 million (with up to $2.1 billion more on the line) to license a COPD drug from China's Sino Biopharmaceutical that could challenge Merck's fast-growing Ohtuvayre. The dual PDE3/4 inhibitor TQC3721 posted impressive Phase 2 data, and the race for next-gen COPD treatments is officially on.
Sino Biopharmaceutical is acquiring LaNova Medicines for up to $951 million, but the real story is in the math: Merck already paid $588 million for just one of LaNova's drugs. The deal spotlights the red-hot bispecific antibody gold rush reshaping oncology dealmaking.
Congo's Ebola outbreak just jumped to two new provinces, pushing the death toll past 600. The terrifying catch: nearly every vaccine, drug, and rapid test in the global stockpile was built for the wrong strain of the virus.
The FDA hasn't had a permanent commissioner since May, and the White House is reviewing finalists to lead an agency that's lost 20% of its workforce. The choice will shape drug approval standards, AI-driven review pilots, and biotech valuations for years to come.
The NEJM just retracted the pivotal trial paper for Tavneos, a vasculitis drug with nearly half a billion in annual sales. The reason: patient data was secretly changed after the trial was unblinded, and nobody disclosed it.
GSK just terminated its $2.2 billion Alzheimer's partnership with Alector after both drugs flopped in clinical trials. The $700 million upfront payment is gone forever, and the wreckage tells us a lot about why the brain remains drug development's toughest frontier.
Prime Medicine just won a binding patent arbitration against Beam Therapeutics over a key gene-editing therapy, and the fallout could reshape who controls what across the entire CRISPR landscape. The ruling clears Prime's path to the clinic while exposing just how tangled gene-editing IP has become.
Pfizer's recall of Bicillin L-A has left the U.S. without reliable access to the only proven treatment for syphilis in pregnant women. With congenital syphilis cases up 700% since 2015, the timing couldn't be worse.
AstraZeneca's amyloidosis drug anselamimab just failed its Phase 3 trial. But the company claims a stunning subgroup signal: 62% survival improvement in a specific patient subset. Is this a real lifeline or the biotech equivalent of cherry-picking stats after a loss?
Novo Nordisk sued Hims & Hers over knockoff Wegovy. Now they're selling the real thing together on the Hims platform. The story behind pharma's strangest reconciliation, and why it could reshape how millions of Americans access GLP-1 drugs.
Intellia Therapeutics paused two late-stage CRISPR trials after a patient suffered life-threatening liver toxicity, and the fallout is forcing the entire in vivo gene-editing field to reckon with an uncomfortable question: how much risk is too much for a one-shot cure?
Ionis just expanded Tryngolza's FDA label from a rare disease affecting thousands to a condition hitting 2.3 million Americans, and the company now sees $3 billion in peak sales. It's the biggest bet yet in Ionis' transformation from biotech's favorite ghostwriter to a blockbuster drug company.
The FDA's drug review center has cycled through five directors in a year and lost over a thousand staff. With complex therapies flooding in and experienced reviewers flooding out, the agency that greenlights every new drug in America is facing a capacity crisis that could reshape the industry.
Kailera Therapeutics' oral obesity pill just hit its goals in two late-stage China trials, delivering 11% weight loss and strong diabetes results. But the GI side effects are intense, and the real battle for the $22 billion oral obesity market is just getting started.
Eli Lilly is paying up to $2.3 billion for Ajax Therapeutics, a startup with a single Phase 1 drug and $143 million in total funding. The bet: a first-in-class JAK2 inhibitor that attacks blood cancer in a way no approved drug can.
The FDA just approved Vera Therapeutics' Trutakna for IgA nephropathy, a kidney disease that barely had any treatments three years ago. Now it has six approved drugs, Wall Street is projecting blockbuster sales, and the real competition is just getting started.
A rare childhood disease that robs kids of their ability to walk has never had an approved treatment. IntraBio's pivotal trial results and an FDA decision date in September could change that for the first time ever.
Seven major medical groups are suing to overturn the CDC's dramatic childhood vaccine overhaul, which cut universal recommendations from 17 diseases to 11. A federal judge has already blocked the changes, but the fight is heading to appeals court with enormous stakes for every family in America.
Sarepta added the FDA's most severe safety warning to its Duchenne gene therapy Elevidys after fatal liver failures in pediatric patients, then announced it's cutting 500 workers. The company's flagship drug went from $900M launch year to an uncertain future in record time.
Gilead Sciences is paying up to $5 billion for Tubulis, a German ADC startup that raised just $12 million in its first funding round six years ago. The deal says as much about Big Pharma's desperation for next-gen cancer platforms as it does about one company's wild ride from university spin-out to mega-acquisition.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals is dropping $10 billion (its largest deal ever) to acquire Crinetics Pharmaceuticals and storm into the world of rare hormone disorders. It's a 102% premium, an all-cash deal, and a massive bet that endocrinology is biotech's next big frontier.
The Trump administration's Most Favored Nation drug pricing policy was supposed to squeeze Big Pharma's margins. J&J just raised its 2026 forecast anyway, and Wall Street isn't worried. Here's why the pricing hammer may have actually helped the giants.
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