WELCOME TO FIERCE LIFE SCIENCES WEEKLY DIGEST While the year has not posted any major biopharma acquisitions so far, the drought has to break at some point—with some industry forecasters predicting a deluge of deals beginning this March. Many Big Pharmas have touted their abilities and appetites for large transactions in recent earnings calls—with a total of $1.7 trillion to spend among them—but as for who might be on the menu, Fierce Biotech has 10 predictions. And after a slump in 2021, analysts expect biopharma M&A to pick up the pace this year, with an “innovation deficit” spurring shopping for new assets. We’ll be watching. | |
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Featured Story | By Annalee Armstrong In a rare moment of solidarity among fierce competitors, Biogen’s peers Roche and Eli Lilly are rallying behind the company’s troubled Alzheimer’s disease therapy, Aduhelm, in an effort to change the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ restrictive ruling against monoclonal antibodies for the condition. read more |
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Top Stories Of The Week By Fraiser Kansteiner Thermo Fisher, plowing ahead on a $650 million bioprocessing expansion, has unveiled a $40 million upgrade at its single-use technologies facility in Millersburg, Pennsylvania. The site is expected to employ more than 1,000 people once fully renovated in the middle of 2023. read more By Annalee Armstrong All the biopharma world is talking about right now is M&A. Who’s going to buy? How much are they willing to spend? Who’s going to get bought? Here are our predictions. read more By Kyle LaHucik Goodbye, lackluster 2021, and hello, "buoyant" 2022 for biopharma M&A. Biopharmas have $1.7 trillion to dish out on mergers and acquisitions, and the industry should expect a big year for M&A as big drugmakers must fill "innovation deficits" in their pipelines for the second half of this decade. read more By Ben Adams Eli Lilly is taking the long view when it comes to the potential launch of its megablockbuster hopeful tirzepatide, and it's focusing on access programs to ensure patients can get their hands on the diabetes drug without being out-of-pocket. read more By Angus Liu AstraZeneca and Merck & Co.’s Lynparza may have a narrower label than GlaxoSmithKline’s rival drug Zejula in ovarian cancer, but in prostate cancer, the situation could flip. read more By Andrea Park The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed a federal complaint with the USDA regarding the alleged treatment of monkeys at the University of California, Davis in connection with Neuralink’s experiments. read more By Conor Hale The sequencing company’s $1.2 billion in sales marked a new quarterly high, but bigger spends on R&D and administrative expenses pushed net income down 56%. CEO Francis deSouza tells us that spending is key to innovation at Illumina—and he details the ways it will need to help Grail get its blood test to as many patients as possible. read more By Fraiser Kansteiner Novartis India has forged a sales and distribution pact with Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories that puts 400 jobs on the chopping block, the Swiss drugmaker said late last week. The deal covers “a few” of Novartis’ established meds, such as pain-relief drug Voveran and Methergine, which is used to treat severe bleeding from the uterus after childbirth. read more By Fraiser Kansteiner What not to do with active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) batch records? Tear them out of a company logbook ahead of an FDA inspection, for one. Earlier this month, Indian drugmaker Indiana Chem-Port learned that lesson the hard way. read more By Angus Liu In the search for more efficient and safer RNA-editing tools, two research teams from the U.S. and China have developed novel ways to recruit a naturally occurring protein inside the body to repair disease-causing mutations in RNA. read more Resources Sponsored by: United Cargo The United Cargo team has made a commitment to pharmaceutical and medical partners that we are equipped to support their vaccine transportation needs safely and effectively across our expansive global and domestic network. The safety and security of these commodities is our priority, and we are proud to be a trusted partner in these efforts. Download infographic now. Sponsored by: Catalent How can Lipid-Based Drug Delivery System help bring poorly soluble drugs to market? Sponsored by: Catalent What is the most suitable dosage form technology for the Oral Delivery of Lipid-Based Formulations? Sponsored by: Catalent Learn more about how the versatility of Softgel Technology helped a customer with a volatile compound. Sponsored by: Blue Matter, strategic consultants in the life sciences What’s in store for the CNS therapeutics market in 2022? This paper looks ahead in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, DMD, psychiatric disorders, pain, and more. Sponsored by: Catalent Biologics Ypsomed and Catalent Biologics experts discuss strategies for integrated PFS manufacturing and auto-injector assembly to accelerate timelines and more in this webinar. Sponsored by: Catalent Biologics Learn how formulation development for a PFS affects manufacturing to drive the industry toward optimizing delivery of injectable products and, ultimately, improving patient care. | 
