Lonza acquires Merck KGaA's five US CDMO plants for antibody-drug conjugates, viral vectors, and lipid nanoparticles, accepting a below-group margin until the 2030s. Merck KGaA exits toll manufacturing and keeps BioReliance.
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Its $1.275 billion upfront commitment to a Phase 1 program puts the spotlight on oral peptide developers, including Entera as it approaches Phase 3 in osteoporosis.
A sign-and-close reverse merger leaves Bolt's original stockholders with 6.9% of the company as Prana's IL-4Rα/TSLP bispecific inherits the Nasdaq listing, backed by a $120 million placement closing today.
Gilead Sciences is paying $1.275 billion upfront for an oral IL-23 receptor drug with no efficacy data, staking a claim on an all-oral IBD franchise built around its own emvistegrast.
In depth
Verastem's 900 mg KRAS G12D dose posted a 50% confirmed response rate in second-line pancreatic cancer, and the company will take a chemotherapy-free regimen into a first-line Phase 3. The rival comparison is overall survival.
Read the storyArriVent's firmonertinib beat chemotherapy on investigator reads in a 398-patient Phase 3, but the blinded central review it chose returned p=0.0654, and first-line EGFR exon 20 lung cancer now belongs to combinations that keep chemotherapy in the regimen.
CSL is paying $355 million upfront for an antibody whose best evidence is a 26-patient interim readout. The deal prices claudin-1 biology, not proven data, across kidney and liver fibrosis.
PhRMA sued CMS on October 7 over the GLOBE most-favored-nation rule for Medicare Part B. The final rule covers as few as four manufacturers and $440 million in projected savings. The suit's real target is the CMMI test authority beneath it.
A Nature paper finds that one arginine transfer RNA, tRNA1 Arg(UCU), keeps prostate tumors on androgen receptor signaling. When it falls, cells slip into a lineage-plastic, AR-inhibitor-resistant state.
