| | | |   | Good morning, all. Damian here with a thoughtful long-read on the future of medicine, a look at the purported next big thing for the pharmaceutical industry, and a novel idea for underwater investors. | | | How the biotech revolution could yet run aground Genome editing, futuristic cancer therapy, rapidly developed new vaccines — the recent history of biology has brought wonders to life. But the emergence of new technologies threatens to outpace our ability to assess them, which would imperil progress and hamper future breakthroughs.
That’s the framing for a thoughtful exploration from STAT’s Matthew Herper, who contends that just as the 20th century belonged to physics, the 21st is biological. That means therapies for previously untreatable diseases and persistent promise that the next major advance will arrive more quickly than the last.
But for humanity to actually benefit from the biotech revolution, we have to be able discern what works from what doesn’t. That’s the looming bottleneck, as researchers embrace shortcuts over rigorous clinical trials and electronic health records remain siloed and unstructured, creating gaps in the scientific infrastructure that could stand in the way of saving lives.
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And be sure to join Matt at 11 a.m. ET Monday for a live chat on his story and all its implications. | Are weight-loss drugs ‘the electric vehicles of biopharma’? Semaglutide, Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster treatment for Type 2 diabetes, led to dramatic effects for adolescents diagnosed with obesity, a result that will likely widen the use of an in-demand class of drugs — and fan a debate over whether someone’s body weight should be treated as a disease.
In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday, semaglutide led to a 17% reduction in body-mass index compared to placebo in a study of about 200 people between the ages of 12 and 18. Outside experts said the trial, while smaller, shorter, and less diverse than they’d like, suggests Novo Nordisk’s drug will one day become a powerful treatment for adolescents struggling to lose weight.
Semaglutide is among an ascendant class of medicines that promise significant weight loss with fewer side effects than the diet drugs of the past. There are more than 100 million people in the U.S. who meet the criteria for obesity, making drugs like semaglutide “the ‘electric vehicles’ of biopharma for this decade,” as SVB Securities analyst David Risinger wrote in a note to clients Wednesday, “because the market opportunity is so significant and current penetration is extremely low.” But that impending windfall for the pharmaceutical industry is distressing for some doctors and activists who argue that fixating on weight loss is scientifically misguided.
Read more. | Incyte Ingenuity Awards in GVHD Recipients Offer Innovative Solutions for Children Living with GVHD Incyte announced Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta as the 2022 recipients of the Incyte Ingenuity Awards in graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), which aim to support the GVHD community by funding novel initiatives that address challenges faced by the GVHD community. Both of these award-winning organizations proposed creative solutions that tackle the unique struggles that children living with chronic GVHD face. To learn more about this program and these proposals, click here. | After a biotech crash, some investors want their money back With biotech stocks in the throes of a lengthy slump, many investors are deeply underwater on bets that looked like winners just a year ago. One firm had a novel suggestion for a foundering drug developer: Just give us the money back.
As STAT’s Jason Mast and Adam Feuerstein report, Apeiron Investment Group penned an open letter to Sensei Biotherapeutics, a cancer company that has lost over 94% of its value since it went public in 2021, requesting just that. Sensei’s valuation is about $40 million, which is a fraction of the $120 million in cash it had as of last quarter, and Apeiron wants the company to offer a substantial portion of that money back to shareholders, either in the form of a dividend or a stock buyback.
Read more. | The plodding end of an erstwhile unicorn Rubius Therapeutics first rose to attention with a 2018 press release claiming its red blood cell platform would lead to “life-changing” treatments, fueling a $2 billion IPO, then the largest in biotech’s history. Four years and a 99% valuation decline later, the company is seeking “strategic alternatives.”
In a statement issued last night, Rubius said it was cutting 84% of its staff and parting ways with its CEO, CFO, and chief legal executive as it considers selling all or part of the company. Dannielle Appelhans, the company’s chief operating officer, will preside over that process as CEO.
Rubius, founded by Flagship Pioneering, ran into repeated setbacks in its efforts to turn red blood cells into medicines for cancer. In September, the company discontinued its only drugs and turned its attention to a new approach to making medicines with “the potential for substantive improvements over our existing platform.” | More reads - ‘Intriguing and sobering’: Enthusiasm over psilocybin’s effect on depression tempered by questions about durability, STAT
- Domestic share buyers step in as foreign funds flee China, Reuters
- A turnaround for Editas Medicine, a CRISPR laggard, hinges on updates on key treatments, STAT
- Biotech company seeks to overcome hurdles to develop flu vaccine skin patch, Boston Globe
| Thanks for reading! Until tomorrow,  | | | |
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