| | | |   | Hello, everyone. Damian here with news on biotech's summer surge, Novavax's painful revision, and one of the few longevity projects not getting showered with money. | | | Everything’s coming up biotech …  With positive data from Karuna Therapeutics and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, plus acquisitions real and rumored from Amgen and Merck, biotech’s nightmarish 2022 has taken a swift turn for the positive.
The bellwether XBI index is up nearly 18% since Aug. 1, buoyed by impressive clinical results, a few unexpectedly positive earnings reports, and a prevailing sense that big drug companies are getting back into the business of buying small ones.
It’s worth noting that the same index is still down about 20% for the year. But considering how dismal biotech looked just three months ago, the industry will take any positives it can get. | … despite a purported disaster According to some voluble voices in the pharmaceutical industry, allowing the U.S. government to negotiate drug prices would sap investment in high-risk science, delay the development of desperately needed medicines, and just generally make life on Earth that much worse.
And yet, with such a policy now all but made law, actual investors, as the chart above illustrates, don’t seem terribly disturbed. What gives?
As STAT’s Matthew Herper writes, if you zoom out, this was pretty predictable. Even adjusting for inflation, each generation of medicines has been more expensive than the last. Many of the patients who receive them are on Medicare, creating an escalating problem for the government. Add in broad popular support and a slim Democratic majority in need of a victory before the midterms and the weekend’s news might have been little surprise. That could help explain the nonexistent market reaction. The specter of drug pricing legislation has lingered over the sector for years, such that its actual arrival is having little effect on valuations. | Aiming to target the root cause of MS with an investigational off-the-shelf EBV T-cell immunotherapy Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infects nearly 95% of adults by the age of 40, and while it can remain dormant in the body throughout life, new research suggests it can also drive serious diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS).ii, iii, vi, vii EBV-targeted cell-based immunotherapies may represent a novel investigational approach to treating MS. | Novavax’s Covid vaccine isn’t drawing a crowd Novavax, maker of the U.S.’s fourth available Covid-19 vaccine, dramatically reduced its 2022 revenue projections yesterday, citing lower than expected demand for its sole commercial product.
The company slashed its full-year expectation in half, forecasting sales of about $2 billion after previously promising between $4 billion and $5 billion. Novavax recorded a $255 million charge in the second quarter related to expiring vaccine inventory and the cancellation of orders. The company’s share price fell about 33% in after-hours trading.
The bull case for Novavax was that its vaccine, despite being about 18 months late to the market, would prove popular among people who were wary of the more newfangled products from Moderna and partners Pfizer and BioNTech. That has not proved true. According to the CDC, as of last week, just 7,381 doses of Novavax’s vaccine have been administered. | As billionaires bankroll anti-aging research, a promising idea languishes While the likes of Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel, and Sergey Brin pour money into companies developing new technologies to combat aging, scientists point to a pioneering study that seems to have slipped through the cracks.
As STAT’s Megan Molteni writes, Nir Barzilai, head of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, spent years raising grant funds and wheedling regulators to design a study that would decisively test whether regular doses of dirt-cheap metformin could hold off cardiovascular disease, cancer, cognitive decline, and death among elderly people. Everything fell into place except the money, which, because metformin’s patents have long since expired, would never come from the drug industry.
Barzilai’s story is one of many in “The race for longevity: How scientists — and industry — are seeking to extend healthy lives,” a new STAT report that takes an in-depth look at the burgeoning field of anti-aging research. You can buy it here. | More reads - Pfizer agrees to $5.4 billion deal for Global Blood Therapeutics. Wall Street Journal
- Here’s who Democrats’ drug pricing bill will actually help. STAT
- Officials wrestle with whether to allow new monkeypox vaccination strategy. New York Times
- Study connects climate hazards to 58% of infectious diseases. Associated Press
| Thanks for reading! Until tomorrow,  | | | |
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