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Good morning. Like all of you, we had been making an attempt to make sense of President Trump’s new drug pricing proposal yesterday. There are various extra questions than solutions, and we dig into all of that right now.
The necessity-to-know this morning
- UnitedHealth Group stated its CEO, Andrew Witty, has stepped down, and former chief government Stephen Hemsley would be the firm’s new chief.
- Cytokinetics stated a Part 3 trial testing its investigational remedy aficamten towards a generally used beta blocker in sufferers with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy met its major endpoint.
- iTeos and GSK are ending the event of an anti-TIGIT antibody, after interim outcomes from a Part 2 lung most cancers trial didn’t present clinically significant enhancements. The information provides one other mark towards TIGIT as a stable goal for next-generation most cancers medication.
RA Capital lays off workers as VCs face monetary pressure
Biotech funding agency RA Capital has laid off workers at its inner startup incubator, my colleague Allison DeAngelis stories.
In current months, RA Capital has requested all of its firms to rethink their plans, on the idea that money shall be tougher to come back by. In consequence, the incubuator, known as RA Ventures, or Raven, has diminished its administrative workers and assist providers, whereas additionally reducing a workforce engaged on synthetic intelligence and machine studying instruments, sources stated.
On the similar time, RA Capital has injected more cash into Raven and is planning a push into the Chinese language biotech trade.
The strikes spotlight the instability that biotech and enterprise corporations face within the U.S. amid a protracted funding downturn, in addition to rising curiosity by buyers to look to China for brand new biotech belongings.
Learn extra from STAT’s Allison DeAngelis.
Attempting to make sense of Trump’s drug pricing plan
Yesterday, the drug trade and specialists scrambled to attempt to perceive President Trump’s new government order that goals to decrease drug costs paid by the U.S. to the degrees that different international locations pay. However the order was scant on particulars, and it’s unclear if it might stand as much as authorized and political challenges.
My colleagues Daniel Payne and Ed Silverman compiled a listing of the important thing questions surrounding the proposal. For instance, what authorized authority does the administration need to decrease costs? And the way will it choose a goal worth for every medicine? Learn extra.
Maybe as a mirrored image of how unlikely buyers assume this coverage would truly be applied, biopharma shares rose yesterday, with the XBI climbing 4%. Within the occasion the coverage had been to be enacted, it could even be helpful for smaller biotech firms, one analyst stated, since pharma firms would have extra purpose to amass biotechs to construct up their pipelines. Learn extra.
Galapagos adjustments its thoughts on its massive shakeup
From my colleague Drew Joseph: In January, the struggling Belgian biotech Galapagos NV introduced it might be splitting into two firms, with the long run Galapagos persevering with to give attention to most cancers cell therapies, and the brand new agency, quickly dubbed SpinCo, set to construct up a pipeline by way of transactions.
As we speak, the corporate walked that plan again.
Citing “regulatory and market developments,” the corporate stated its board had “determined to re-evaluate” the break up. Galapagos additionally advised it is likely to be keen to surrender its most cancers cell remedy work, saying that the board would “discover all strategic alternate options for its current companies, together with cell remedy, with a give attention to maximizing assets obtainable for transformative enterprise growth transactions.” The corporate’s focus has been on growing CAR-Ts that in idea might provide manufacturing benefits over different firms’ merchandise.
The corporate had additionally stated final month that Paul Stoffels, a pharma legend who took on the CEO position in 2022 in a bid to resurrect Galapagos, would retire within the subsequent 12 months. As we speak, the corporate stated that Henry Gosebruch, who had been tapped to steer SpinCo, was succeeding Stoffels as Galapagos CEO, efficient instantly.
The courtroom combat over CRISPR isn’t over but
A federal court docket yesterday reopened the query of who owns key CRISPR patents, extending a now 13-year-long authorized saga over who invented the know-how.
An appeals court docket sided with the College of California and the College of Vienna of their bid to revive a combat over foundational CRISPR-Cas9 patents that the colleges say ought to go to their Nobel Prize-winning scientists Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier — as an alternative of a gaggle of scientists led by Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise.
The ruling doesn’t invalidate the Broad’s patents, which stand for now, but it surely does ship the case again to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Workplace’s enchantment board.
Learn extra from STAT’s Megan Molteni.
Will there quickly be a Theranos 2.0?
Elizabeth Holmes is serving an 11-year jail sentence for deceptive buyers with Theranos. However it seems her companion, Billy Evans, is making an attempt to revive her dream of a diagnostic testing revolution.
Evans has fashioned a brand new firm, known as Haemanthus, that additionally goals to make use of blood testing to detect a big selection of well being situations. The information triggered a mixture of shock, anger, and rueful skepticism.
“I want there have been a technique to quick a inventory earlier than an organization even exists,” one educational stated.
Haemanthus continues to be in stealth mode, and particulars about its underlying know-how are scant, however a prototype of its gadget bears a putting resemblance to the boxy blood testing machines at Theranos.
Learn extra from STAT’s Casey Ross and Jonathan Wosen.
Extra reads
- Roche will get to work on U.S. funding plan with reveal of $700M weight problems drug plant in North Carolina, Fierce Pharma
- Wellness CEO recordsdata ethics criticism towards prime RFK Jr. adviser, Politico
