Original reporting and analysis on the stories shaping biotech.
Akari Therapeutics just partnered with WuXi XDC to manufacture its cancer drug, right as Washington tightens the screws on Chinese biotech. The preclinical data looks promising, but the geopolitical math is anything but simple.
The U.S. can't domestically produce basic antibiotics like penicillin, with over 70% of active ingredients sourced from China. Now the federal government is paying Shionogi up to $482 million to change that, and the reasons go way beyond hospital infections.
Roche just committed over $1 billion in potential milestones to co-develop cancer-killing "guided missiles" with C4 Therapeutics. The same week, Gilead made its own protein degradation bet. When two pharma giants pile into the same modality within 24 hours, it's worth paying attention.
Gilead just paid $45 million to license a cancer drug that doesn't block bad proteins; it destroys them entirely. The Kymera Therapeutics deal could be worth up to $750 million, and it's part of a much bigger bet on protein degradation reshaping oncology.
Novo Nordisk launched a higher-dose Wegovy at $399 per month, undercutting Eli Lilly's Zepbound by 40% and igniting an all-out pricing war in the obesity drug market. With subscription plans as low as $249/month and 20.7% weight loss in trials, the GLP-1 landscape is being rewritten in real time.
The most safety-conscious AI company in tech just got kicked out of federal healthcare systems. Not for a security flaw, but for refusing to let the Pentagon use its tools without guardrails. The fallout for drug development could set the FDA back 18 months.
Biogen just partnered with Alloy Therapeutics to access a platform that literally reshapes antisense drugs at the molecular level. It's a quiet deal that could unlock targets the company's existing toolkit can't touch.
Sidewinder Therapeutics just raised $137 million without ever dosing a patient. Its bispecific ADC platform has big pharma's venture arms lining up, and the math behind the bet says a lot about where oncology dealmaking is headed.
Jeito Capital just closed the largest fund ever raised by an independent European biopharma investor: $1.2 billion. It's a massive bet that Europe can stop watching its best biotech companies get scooped up by American money.
A University of Michigan team just proved that triglycerides directly cause a deadly condition with zero approved drugs, then showed they could prevent it in mice. The finding could unlock an entirely new class of treatment for 200,000 Americans a year.
Anthropic just dropped $400 million in stock to acquire a stealth biotech startup with no product, no revenue, and fewer than 10 employees. The deal netted one early investor a jaw-dropping 38,513% return, and it signals a brand-new front in the AI-biotech arms race.
Neurocrine Biosciences just dropped $2.9 billion on Soleno Therapeutics to own the only approved drug for Prader-Willi syndrome's life-threatening hunger. The deal says a lot about what big pharma is willing to pay in 2026's red-hot M&A market.
Gilead just agreed to pay $3.15 billion (and up to $5 billion total) for a Munich startup most people have never heard of. Tubulis' "guided missile" cancer drugs caught Gilead's eye with a 59% response rate in hard-to-treat ovarian cancer, and the deal says everything about where oncology is headed.
Replimune's tumor-killing virus drug faces a make-or-break FDA decision on April 10, but the agency that rejected it last year has lost nearly every leader who made that call. The approval has become a litmus test for whether the FDA can still function amid unprecedented turmoil.
Biogen's newest deal isn't about a single drug; it's about fixing the delivery problem that's been holding back an entire class of genetic medicines. Alloy Therapeutics' shape-shifting ASO platform claims 50x better potency, and Sanofi already placed a $427M bet on it.
A computer just designed a new opioid addiction drug that doesn't touch opioid receptors at all. GATC Health's AI-generated candidate is heading into human trials, and it could signal a turning point for a field that's been stuck for decades.
Sanofi's bispecific antibody lunsekimig crushed its respiratory trials in asthma and nasal polyps, then face-planted in eczema. The split verdict reveals why building one drug to rule multiple diseases is biotech's hardest trick.
Takeda walked away from an eight-year, $150M neuroscience partnership with Denali Therapeutics, handing back a promising dementia drug with no safety concerns. The reason? "Strategic considerations." Now Denali has to go it alone with nearly $1B in cash and Phase 1/2 data coming this year.
The FDA canceled a critical meeting with Kezar Life Sciences without explanation. Four months of silence later, the biotech was dead, its promising autoimmune hepatitis drug orphaned, and AIH patients left waiting for a treatment that may never come.
The White House slapped 100% tariffs on imported drugs, then handed pharma companies a menu of ways to avoid paying. With $400 billion in manufacturing promises, a blockbuster M&A week, and a growing trust crisis over peptide drugs, the biotech landscape just got a lot more complicated.
Three mega-deals worth over $20 billion landed in March alone, with Lilly, Merck, and Biogen all making billion-dollar bets. Big pharma's $1.2 trillion cash pile and looming patent cliffs are fueling what Goldman Sachs calls a potentially record-breaking year for biotech dealmaking.
UCSF scientists identified a single protein, FTL1, that drives brain aging in mice, and reducing it actually reversed cognitive decline. In a field obsessed with slowing aging, this is the first target that put the car in reverse.
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