| | | |   | Good morning, all. Damian here with a look at the scientist behind lecanemab, a mess at BIO, and some vindication for Merck. | | | The soft-spoken Swede behind lecanemab The surprising clinical success of the Alzheimer’s disease treatment lecanemab led to scrutiny and speculation for Biogen and Eisai, the two companies developing it. But the most seismic effects fell on BioArctic, the little-known Swedish company that invented lecanemab, and the 73-year-old professor who founded it.
As STAT’s Jason Mast reports, Lars Lannfelt was out to dinner when he learned that lecanemab, which he invented two decades ago in his lab at Uppsala University, had succeeded in a Phase 3 study. BioArctic’s share price roughly tripled, making Lannfelt, who retained a 35% stake, a wealthy man on paper.
With Wall Street forecasting billions in future sales for lecanemab, BioArctic’s royalties could climb into the hundreds of millions of dollars, a dramatic swing in fortunes for a company that has operated on a tiny budget for its entire existence. That would allow BioArctic to evolve from a small, research-focused operation into a drug company that markets its own products. And it would make Lannfelt one of the most successful scientific founders in recent biotech history.
Read more. | BIO’s ‘bold change’ runs aground Michelle McMurry-Heath, hired as BIO CEO in 2020 to bring what she described as “bold change” to the organization, has resigned from her job at biotech’s largest lobbying group, according to the Wall Street Journal.
McMurry-Heath had been on leave for an indefinite amount of time, STAT’s Rachel Cohrs reported, and BIO board members received a notification over the weekend of an emergency full board meeting set for Monday.
BIO has been roiled by internal conflict for more than a year, marked by departures in its lobbying team, disagreements over how to handle drug pricing policy, and debate over whether the group should take stances on social issues outside the biotech space such as voting rights. | Two decades of Alzheimer’s research and doing what’s right for patients By following the science and providing comprehensive support for people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, collectively we as an industry have improved detection and diagnosis, and explored treatment options for patients around the globe. As we approach an important milestone for understanding more about Alzheimer’s and the anti-amyloid hypothesis, learn more about the work, research and even setbacks that have built the foundation of this field over the past 20 years. | Merck’s $11.5 billion wager comes good Last year, when Merck agreed to pay $11.5 billion for the biotech company Acceleron, Wall Street concluded that for the deal to make any sense, the company’s late-stage cardiovascular treatment simply had to work. Yesterday, the drug met its primary goal in a pivotal study, vindicating Merck’s investment and potentially changing the standard of care for a debilitating disease.
As STAT’s Matthew Herper reports, sotatercept, a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension, beat placebo on a measure of how far patients could walk in six minutes, a test that correlates with cardiovascular health. The drug also showed a statistically significant benefit in eight of the trial’s nine other measures of efficacy, Merck said.
If the detailed data, to be presented later this year, hold up to scrutiny, analysts expect sotatercept to become a bedrock medicine in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension, a disease in which high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs leads to difficulty breathing and walking.
Read more. | Biogen is breaking tradition in its CEO search Mathai Mammen, a senior researcher most recently at Johnson & Johnson, has emerged as a top candidate to be Biogen’s next CEO, according to people familiar with the search, and his selection would break the mold for a company that has generally gone with business over science in its leadership.
Talks between Biogen and Mammen have reached a serious stage, but a formal job offer has not yet been made, according to the sources. In an August announcement that he would leave his job as J&J’s head of research, Mammen said he planned “to pursue my next leadership role.”
Sources familiar with Biogen’s search said the company has been putting a priority on finding a candidate with R&D experience, which would mark a significant departure from corporate tradition. Since 1985, only one of Biogen’s CEOs has had a Ph.D.
Read more. | More reads - European Commission says preliminary findings indicate Teva violated antitrust rules, STAT
- Bio-Rad Laboratories in talks to combine with Qiagen, Wall Street Journal
- Second U.S. oncology provider plans to go public, STAT
- Pfizer exec denies CEO negotiated EU Covid vaccine contract via text message, Reuters
| Thanks for reading! Until tomorrow,  | | | |
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