Original reporting and analysis on the stories shaping biotech.
Biogen is spending $5.6 billion to acquire Apellis Pharmaceuticals, picking up two marketed complement drugs and a ready-made nephrology salesforce. Wall Street likes the strategy but wants proof the revenue can justify the 140% premium.
For a decade, CAR-T therapy crushed blood cancers but couldn't touch solid tumors. A Chinese biotech just became the first company in the world to change that, and the implications go way beyond stomach cancer.
J&J is paying $1 billion in cash for Firefly Bio, a four-year-old startup with zero drugs in clinical trials. The target: a platform that combines antibody targeting with protein degradation to go after KRAS, cancer's most infamous "undruggable" protein.
Serapha Bio just launched with $230 million and a gene-editing therapy licensed from a Chinese biotech, drawing checks from RA Capital, RTW, and a who's who of specialist funds. It's the biggest gene-editing Series A of the year, and it's wading straight into the deep end of U.S.-China biotech politics.
Ollin Biosciences just raised $330 million to take on Roche's $5 billion eye drug Vabysmo with a sharper version of the same weapon. Early head-to-head data looks surprisingly good, and some of healthcare's biggest investors are all in.
Eli Lilly just signed a $1.9 billion collaboration with a Shanghai biotech it already partnered with in 2022. The deal reveals how Big Pharma is racing to lock up Chinese discovery assets, even as geopolitical headwinds intensify.
French pharma giant Servier is paying up to $2.65 billion for a muscular dystrophy drug that hasn't even finished its pivotal trial. The bet: that protecting fragile muscles from damage, rather than fixing the underlying genetic defect, could become the backbone of treatment.
Eli Lilly is paying up to $7.8 billion for Centessa Pharmaceuticals and its experimental sleep disorder drugs. It's the biggest signal yet that the GLP-1 king is building a second empire, and the orexin agonist race just got a lot more interesting.
Merck is dropping $6.7 billion on a CML drug still in early trials, and Wall Street can't decide if it's a heist or a gamble. With Keytruda's $25 billion patent cliff looming in 2028, the deal reveals just how aggressively Big Pharma's biggest player is scrambling to reinvent itself.
Insilico Medicine just dosed the first human with an AI-designed brain-penetrant drug targeting Parkinson's-related inflammation. It's one of the toughest design challenges in pharma, and a robot chemist pulled it off in record time.
The UK just approved the first cancer drug delivered by a wearable on-body injector, letting multiple myeloma patients receive treatment at home instead of spending hours in an infusion center. It could be the beginning of a massive shift in how we deliver cancer care.
The FDA just fast-tracked Merck's new KRAS G12C inhibitor combined with Keytruda after seeing a 77% response rate in first-line lung cancer patients. After 40 years of being "undruggable," KRAS might finally have met its match.
Pfizer's first new drug from its $43 billion Seagen acquisition just failed a Phase 3 lung cancer trial. The result raises uncomfortable questions about whether the biggest pharma deal in years can actually deliver on its post-COVID growth promises.
The FDA just approved the first drug that fights the autoimmune attack behind childhood type 1 diabetes, not just its symptoms. It's not a cure, but it cracks open an entirely new treatment paradigm for 18,000 kids diagnosed every year.
Regeneron's cemdisiran just earned FDA Priority Review for myasthenia gravis, promising patients a single subcutaneous shot every three months instead of IV infusions. The RNA-based drug silences complement protein production at the source, and its Phase 3 data suggest less immune suppression might actually work better.
Exelixis' next-generation drug zanzalintinib missed a key survival endpoint in colorectal cancer, sending shares down 10-12%. With Cabometyx still driving 90% of revenue, the pressure to prove the successor can carry the franchise just got a lot more intense.
HHS says biotech companies have been submitting mountains of manufacturing data that FDA never actually required for Phase 1 trials. Operation TrialBlazer aims to cut 6–12 months off first-in-human timelines, and the implications for cash-strapped startups are massive.
Merck's $10.8 billion acquisition of Prometheus Biosciences just delivered: tulisokibart became the first anti-TL1A antibody to hit its primary endpoint in a Phase 3 ulcerative colitis trial. With analysts projecting $5.2 billion in peak sales and a 2027 launch, this is Merck's biggest post-Keytruda moment yet.
The FDA is now watching clinical trial data stream in live from AstraZeneca and Amgen studies, ditching the old batch-submission model entirely. It's the biggest change to how regulators oversee drug development in decades, and a broader pilot launches this summer.
The FDA refused to even review Moderna's mRNA flu vaccine application. Then, according to Politico, the President called the FDA commissioner to the White House. A week later, the agency reversed course. What that means for the future of drug regulation is worth paying attention to.
Definium Therapeutics just dropped Phase 3 data for its LSD-derived depression pill that blows past every benchmark in psychiatry. One dose, no therapy required, and effects lasting three months. The psychedelic drug race just got a new frontrunner.
Novo Nordisk's next-gen obesity drug CagriSema was built to match Eli Lilly's tirzepatide. It failed a head-to-head Phase 3 trial, sending Novo's stock plunging and wiping out hundreds of billions in market value. The obesity drug throne just got a lot harder to reclaim.
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