Sanofi buying Blueprint Medicines for $9.1 billion

Sanofi said this morning that it plans to buy Blueprint Medicines in a deal worth more than $9 billion, as the French pharma firm expands its immunology pipeline, a key focus for the company.

Blueprint is being acquired for $129 per share, or a 27% premium on the biotech's closing price on Friday. Company shareholders will also be eligible for another $400 million in potential milestone payments.

Blueprint, based in Cambridge, Mass., has an approved drug called Ayvakit that treats a rare immunological condition called systemic mastocytosis. It brought in $479 million in revenue in 2024, with Blueprint forecasting that sales of the drug could reach $2 billion by 2030.

"The proposed acquisition of Blueprint Medicines represents a strategic step forward in our rare and immunology portfolios," Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said in a statement.

The Blueprint acquisition is the largest in biotech since J&J bought Intra-Cellular Therapies for $14.6 billion in January. Bristol Myers Squibb acquired Karuna Therapeutics for $14 billion in December 2023.

Cancer

Another blockbuster PD-L1-VEGF licensing deal

This time it's Bristol Myers Squibb paying the German firm BioNTech $1.5 billion upfront for 50-50 rights to an experimental cancer drug called BNT327, which works on both PD-L1 and VEGF. Bristol will also pay BioNTech up to $2 billion in annual payments through 2028. BioNTech will then be eligible to receive up to $7.6 billion in additional development, regulatory, and commercial milestone payments.

A similar experimental antibody drug, from Summit Therapeutics and the Chinese firm Akeso, has garnered attention because it outperformed Merck's Keytruda, the best-selling drug in the world, in a study in non-small cell lung cancer. However, mixed results from another trial led Summit's stock to drop 30% on Friday.

Last month, Pfizer paid $1.5 billion upfront to China's 3SBio (with another $4.8 billion in commitments for future payments) to acquire a PD1-VEGF drug.

Autoimmune disease

Vera Therapeutics reports positive results from trial of kidney disease drug

An experimental medicine from Vera Therapeutics significantly reduced levels of toxic protein in the urine of patients with an autoimmune kidney disease. The Phase 3 study results reported Monday met an intermittent treatment goal and laid down a marker ahead of a competing study readout later this week.

The Vera drug called atacicept lowered proteinuria levels by 46% after nine months compared to 7% lowering in patients given a placebo. The improvement — 42% as calculated using a prespecified statistical model that takes into account baseline factors — will support a regulatory submission to the Food and Drug Administration before the end of the year, Vera said.

The result was in the range of a "best-case" scenario for atacicept laid out by Cowen biotech analyst Ritu Baral in a note previewing the study. How Vera's stock price reacts, however, might also depend on the readout expected Friday from a similarly designed Phase 3 study involving a competing IgAN medicine made by Otsuka, the Japanese drugmaker.

CANCER

AstraZeneca set high ambitions in a harsh climate

As AstraZeneca rolls out key ASCO data on its cancer drugs Imfinzi, camizestrant, and Enhertu, CEO Pascal Soriot is both bullish and wary — touting progress in gastric breast cancers while warning that U.S. drug pricing reforms could kneecap future innovation, STAT's Matt Herper writes.

While Imfinzi continues to carve out niches overlooked by competitors like Merck's Keytruda, and camizestrant shows promise in ESR1-mutated breast cancer, Soriot stressed that "most-favored nation" pricing could derail U.S. biopharma and shift momentum to China.

If it was enacted "on existing products, the impact on the industry would be substantial," he said. "I mean, honestly, substantial is an understatement. Dramatic. And I think it would really undermine the leadership the U.S. has in biosciences, biopharmaceuticals."

Policy

Despite all its promise, mRNA is in peril

Once hailed a pandemic-era miracle, mRNA is now under fire as federal health leaders, including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., roll back vaccine recommendations and funding while embracing rhetoric rooted in Covid-era backlash, STAT's Lizzy Lawrence and Isabella Cueto write.

The Trump administration's cancellation of more than $700 million in Moderna flu vaccine contracts, coupled with new FDA restrictions and sidelining of mRNA by NIH, signals a stark retreat from a platform that saved millions.

"This is the only place in the world where this is happening," said Clay Alspach, executive director for the Alliance for mRNA Medicines. "Other countries are rolling out the red carpet for this technology."

BIOTECH

Kymera reports early-stage success for drug meant to rival Sanofi and Regeneron's Dupixent

Kymera Therapeutics this morning reported that an experimental drug designed to rival Sanofi and Regeneron's blockbuster therapy Dupixent succeeded in a closely watched early-stage trial, STAT's Jonathan Wosen reports.

The Phase 1 trial, which enrolled 118 healthy volunteers, tested the safety and tolerability of KT-621, a small molecule drug that targets STAT6, a signaling protein that plays a key role in driving immune activation. The study found that the experimental therapy was as safe as the placebo, with no severe adverse events and no treatment-related adverse events that caused participants to stop taking the drug.

The announcement, shared in a company press release, falls somewhere between what market analysts had expected and what they had described as a best-case scenario.

psychedelics

Atai, Beckley merge amid psychedelic policy shift

Atai Life Sciences is merging with Beckley Psytech in a $370 million deal that consolidates two major players in psychedelic drug development, forming a new entity called Atai Beckley.

The combined company, STAT's Jason Mast writes, will house a portfolio including BPL-003, Beckley's intranasal syntehtic 5-MeO-DMT — an ultra-short-acting psychedelic derived from toad venom that has gained cultural notoriety and regulatory attention.

With randomized depression data expected midyear, the deal comes amid a volatile policy landscape: newly appointed FDA chief Marty Makary has pledged swift reviews of psychedelic data, even as the agency last year rejected MDMA therapy over trial concerns.

Deep breath... there's more news

Scoop: The FDA plans to begin rolling out its AI tool agency-wide on Tuesday, weeks ahead of schedule. Some employees who have had a look say it's not all it is being made out to be.
Uniqure announced a regulatory update on its gene therapy for Huntington's disease. The filing supporting an accelerated approval is expected in the first quarter 2026.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals licensed a GLP-1/GIF obesity drug and reported interim results from a mid-stage study involving its muscle-preserving drug candidate.