BioSpace

Immunology & inflammation stole the show this week, as Gilead dropped up to $2.1 billion for Ouro Medicines and its T cell engager OM336—an investment it hopes to split with longtime partner Galapagos. Meanwhile, Sanofi also added a T cell engager in a licensing deal with Kali Therapeutics worth $180 million upfront.

One I&I partnership that bore fruit last week was that of Johnson & Johnson and Protagonist Therapeutics ...

In this episode, you'll be listening to  Akshay Rai, principal, Healthcare & Biotech Investments at Premji Invest and Viswa Colluru, CEO and founder, Enveda. They discuss how AI platforms must now prove themselves through data, focused pipelines and clinical readouts and that promises of faster, cheaper drug discovery are not enough to entice strong investor engagement. 

Host

Jennifer Smith-Parker, Director of Insights, BioSpace

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Biopharma’s weight loss warriors have led the news this week, with Structure Therapeutics and Rhythm Pharmaceuticals announcing new data. Structure delivered a “competitive profile” for its investigational GLP-1 pill compared to Eli Lilly’s orforglipron and Novo Nordisk’s oral Wegovy, BMO Capital Markets wrote to investors, after the candidate elicited 16.3% weight loss after 44 weeks in a Phase 2 trial. Rhythm was not as successfu...

In this episode of Denatured, you'll listen to Oxana Iliach, senior director of regulatory strategy at Certara and Vera Pomerantseva, director of product management for risk-based quality management at eClinical Solutions. We speak about how the FDA's latest decision to have one, rather than two pivotal studies, for new drug applications raises the bar for data collection and risk-based management.

Host

⁠Jennifer C. Smith-Parker⁠, Di...

After Friday’s news that Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research Chief Vinay Prasad will leave the FDA—again—at the end of April, stocks for several rare disease drug developers popped. UniQure, in particular, was up 51% in premarket trading on Monday. Prasad in a meeting last Thursday with select journalists called the biotech’s Huntington’s treatment AMT-130 a “failed” therapy, according to STAT News. Shares of Replimune a...

Stylus Medicine CEO Emile Nuwaysir and Chief Scientific Officer Jason Fontenot speak with BioSpace about the biotech's work on next-generation genetic medicines—and why they think it’s the perfect time to be in the cell therapy game.

Stylus Medicine is featured in BioSpace's  list, the top startups to watch in the U.S.

Host

Annalee Armstrong, Senior Editor, BioSpace

Guests

Emile Nuwaysir, CEO, Stylus Medicine

Jason Fontenot, Chief Scien...

In this Denatured episode, Jennifer C. Smith-Parker speaks to Ram May-Ron, managing partner at FreeMind Group, and Ravi Kiron, managing director at Biopharma Strategy Advisors. We'll discuss how best to tailor an investment approach of both nondilutive funding and family offices to overcome the drug development valley of death.

Host

⁠Jennifer Smith-Parker⁠, Director of Insights, BioSpace

Guests

Ram May-Ron, Managing Partner, FreeMind ...

The FDA is dominating the headlines once again thisweek.

Days after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary appeared to question uniQure’s gene therapy candidate for Huntington’s disease, the company revealed that the agency will require it to conduct a randomized, double-blind, sham surgery–controlled Phase 3 study. The FDA also published anothercomplete response letter (CRL), this one for REGENXBIO’s gene therapy for Hunter syndrome. The ...

In this episode, you'll be listening to Indu Navar, CEO and founder of EverythingALS and Dr. Olga Uspenskaya, chief medical officer at VectorY Therapeutics. We'll be speaking about patient-pharma collaborations accelerating trials and hope, advances in ALS biology understanding and biomarker-driven endpoints.

Host

Jennifer Smith-Parker, Director of Insights, BioSpace

Guests

⁠Indu Navar⁠, CEO and Founder, EverythingALS

Dr. Olga Uspenskay...

Eli Lilly notches another win over Novo Nordisk, as Zepbound bests CagriSema in a head-to-head trial sponsored by Novo; The FDA kicked off Rare Disease Week, providing draft guidance on its new plausible mechanism pathway, while a bipartisan senate hearing on Thursday will focus on the authorization process for rare conditions; Another leadership change shakes up CDC; and Gilead acquires CAR T partner Arcellx for nearly $8 billion....

Corsera Health’s Chief Operating Officer Rena Denoncourt and CFO Meredith Kaya speak with BioSpace about the biotech’s mission and vision for the next generation of cardiovascular care in this special bonus episode.

Corsera Health is featured in BioSpace's NextGen: Class of 2026 list, the top startups to watch in the U.S.

Host

Annalee Armstrong, Senior Editor, BioSpace

Guests

Rena Denoncourt, Chief Operating Officer, Corsera Health

Mere...

In this episode, you'll be listening to Jane Hughes, President of R&D and Co Founder of Verdiva Bio, and Jon Rees, CEO and cofounder of MitoRx Therapeutics. We'll discuss next-generation obesity solutions tackling GLP-1's muscle loss and adherence challenges, through innovative muscle preservation, oral administration and combination therapy.

Host

Jennifer Smith-Parker, Director of Insights, BioSpace

Guests

Jane Hughes, President o...

Last week, the FDA declined to review Moderna’s mRNA-based flu vaccine, with Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad himself signing the refuse-to-file (RTF) letter. Prasad said Moderna’s comparator group “does notreflect the best-available standard of care,” while Moderna pushed back, saying CBER had previously found a standard-dose flu shot to be an “acceptable” comparator. Despite the shocking turn of ...

Last year, the FDA announced it would be phasingout animal testing requirements for some therapies. The NIHfollowed suit. According to Thomas Hartung, professor and chair at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, these policy shifts are an “overdue adaptation to scientific progress.”

In this special edition of The Weekly, Hartung discusses howartificial intelligence (AI) and various non-animal models such as human organoi...

In this episode of Denatured, Jennifer C. Smith-Parker speaks with Dr. Rob Monroe, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Oncology at Danaher Corporation and Chief Medical Officer at Leica Biosystems, and Jennifer Fakish, Vice President and Franchise Head of Oncology at Danaher Corporation.

We'll be discussing how antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) are transforming cancer care and with AI-powered pathology, doctors can now mea...

Last Thursday, Hims & Hers launched a compounded versionof Novo’s oral Wegovy, approved just before Christmas and launched in early January. Novo was, not surprisingly, none too pleased. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary denounced“illegal copycat drugs” in an X post the same day without naming Hims, which then said it would notsell the oral weight loss drug. Novo sued the consumer healthcare company for patent infringement, seeking...

In this episode of Denatured, Jennifer C. Smith-Parker speaks to Erik Digman Wiklud, CEO of Circio and Jacob Becraft, CO-founder and CEO of Strand Therapeutics.

Since the mRNA vaccine breakthroughs of the COVID-19 era, attention has turned to what's next for programmable medicines. While first- generation mRNA prove the power of transient genetic instruction, its instability, immune reactivity, and short-lived expression have limit...

Pfizer reported the first data from its new obesity pipeline, picked up in the nearly $10 billion acquisition of Metsera last fall. While BMO Capital Markets said in a Tuesday note that the data “look competitive,” analysts clamored for more details on Pfizer’s earnings call the same morning—and were left wanting more. Meawhile, Merck batted away accusations of “modest growth” from analysts on its own earnings call, as CEO Robert D...

In this episode of Denatured, Jennifer C. Smith-Parker speaks with RTW’s Rod Wong and Stephanie Sirota how shifting JPM deal timing masks record M&A potential; why oncology, obesity, psychedelics, and neuroscience are attracting fresh capital; and how “alpha stacking” shapes their investment edge in an age of chronic uncertainty. They cover topics discussed in RTW's new book, "Innovation is the Best Medicine."

Hosts⁠⁠⁠

⁠Jennifer ...