| | | |   | Good morning, all. Damian here in the waning hours of #JPM23, when the venture capitalists set off for their ski trips and the rest of us return to something like normalcy. Today we've got some news from Verily, a conference retrospective, and the future of BioNTech. | | | Verily is going through a shakeup Verily, the health technology company spun out of tech giant Alphabet, is restructuring its management team and laying off 200 employees.
As STAT’s Matthew Herper reports, Jessica Mega, Verily’s co-founder and the longtime public face of the company, has left. So too has Vivian S. Lee, a radiologist and former health system executive who joined Verily in 2018. Amy Abernethy, a former FDA official Verily hired in 2021, will be elevated to president of product development and chief medical officer.
The moves are part of a restructuring by Stephen Gillett, an Alphabet executive who became Verily’s CEO on Jan. 3, replacing the geneticist Andy Conrad. “We are making changes that refine our strategy, prioritize our product portfolio, and simplify our operating model,” Gillett wrote in an email to Verily’s staff. “We will advance fewer initiatives with greater resources.”
Read more. | Taking stock of #JPM23 We started this week’s coverage of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference with a reminder that the centerpiece of the week is an investment banking conference, so it seems fitting to finish with a look at stocks.
The week's top performers were CinCor Pharma, Albireo Pharma, and Amryt Pharma, with prices that doubled or more because all three companies are being acquired. In the “non-takeout” winners circle: Rain Oncology, CureVac, and Fulcrum Therapeutics.
Fate Therapeutics leads the list of stock decliners, triggered by a culling of most of its clinical pipeline. Other noteworthy decliners include Phathom Pharma, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, and Mirati Therapeutics.
Biotech stocks, overall, are up about 1% year to date, as measured by the two most-closely followed indices, just slightly underperforming the 2% return for the S&P 500. Not much to see there. | 5 ways biotech can help support patients and their communities As a company, Amgen’s mission is to serve patients, and while innovating new medicines may be at the core of what they do every day, staff are always excited for new ways to serve not only patients, but also the communities where they live and work. Learn more about how the people of Amgen came together in 2022 to help patients, families and communities live happier, healthier lives. | BioNTech's big plans for mRNA In its 15 years of existence, BioNTech has grown from a lightly funded science project into a multibillion-dollar company supplying mRNA vaccines around the globe. Uğur Şahin, the company’s co-founder and CEO, said BioNTech is just getting started, forecasting a future in which mRNA therapies account for a third of all new drugs.
Speaking to STAT’s Jonathan Wosen, Şahin said the future of mRNA is a marriage between precision medicine and machine learning. BioNTech is among a handful of companies developing personalized cancer vaccines based on the genome of an individual patient’s tumors, crafting mRNA vaccines meant to treat the malignancy and be updated once it mutates. And the company is relying on AI to help it identify complex biological patterns and illuminate new targets for mRNA medicines that might escape human eyes.
“If you see what’s happening in mRNA investment, it's not just a few companies,” Şahin said. “Now it’s a field.”
Read more. | CAR-T might finally come to doctors’ offices CAR-T, the novel cancer therapy that has provided dramatic benefits for some patients, has long been limited by the complex and costly process of administration, available only in academic medical centers. But Medicare, anticipating wider demand for CAR-T, has taken a step toward making it available in doctors’ offices.
As STAT’s John Wilkerson reports, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services corrected a glitch that made it impossible for physician practices to get paid by the government for administering CAR-T. That eliminates a major barrier to doctors’ offices administering the treatments, which cost more than $400,000 and require additional supportive care.
“This is starting to make it mainstream so more patients have access to it,” said James Essell, chair of cellular therapy for the U.S. Oncology Network.
Read more. | More reads - Physicians group urges FDA to convene expert panel before finally approving an Alzheimer’s drug, STAT
- BioNTech seeks to have CureVac patent nullified in German court, Reuters
- Democratizing drug development will be a win for all, STAT
| Thanks for reading! More tomorrow,  | |
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