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April 27, 2018

Welcome to FierceLifeSci Weekly Digest, your roundup of the biggest and most popular stories from each of our publications.

Featured Story

Shire and Takeda come to terms with a $64B deal, the biggest pharma M&A in years

We have a deal—at least a preliminary one. Late Tuesday, Shire said Takeda had finally landed on a buyout offer worth recommending to shareholders. Namely, £49 per share, about 44% of that in cash. Takeda shareholders weren't exactly thrilled, though. The Japanese drugmaker's shares dropped 7% Wednesday morning.

Top Stories Of The Week

Sanofi hires ex-Roche executive John Reed to replace retiring Elias Zerhouni as R&D chief

Sanofi is changing its head of global R&D. Elias Zerhouni, M.D., is to retire from the position at the end of June, leaving former Roche research leader John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., to take charge of Sanofi’s pipeline.

It's another fail for AstraZeneca's I-O combo, but it may not mean what you think

AstraZeneca has come up short in another lung cancer trial of its immuno-oncology combo, this time in patients who've failed on two prior treatments. But investors shouldn’t use the outcome to predict the forthcoming results of a closely watched first-line study, analysts say.

After questioning Lilly/Incyte's baricitinib, FDA director jumps ship to AstraZeneca

The FDA’s Badrul Chowdhury is moving to AstraZeneca in the same week that he made a series of critical remarks against Eli Lilly and Incyte's long-delayed baricitinib, which is set for an advisory committee on Monday.

Squeezed Mylan axing 500 jobs in West Virginia to 'right-size' massive plant

With a generics pricing squeeze hitting the entire copycat drug industry, Mylan is laying off about 500 employees in Morgantown, West Virginia. The cuts will simplify the site—among pharma's largest—which is now too complex, the company said.

No thanks to eggs: Next year's flu shot will shield only 20% against dominant strain

Protection against the dominant H3N2 flu strain offered by the coming season’s flu vaccine will again be far from optimal—putting it mildly. That's thanks to the widely used manufacturing process based on eggs, according to a new study.

Gene editing shows promise in combating HIV reservoirs

Gene therapy has experienced a renaissance of late, and it’s a technology that many researchers in HIV are embracing. That's because the ability to manipulate genes—particularly CCR5, which is known to play a role in HIV resistance—could help eliminate dormant reservoirs of virus that can resurge at any time.

Grail to seek an additional $1B in funding before Hong Kong IPO, report says

Cancer blood test developer Grail is reportedly considering whether to squeeze in yet another billion-dollar funding round before it goes public in Hong Kong later this year, according to Bloomberg.

Pfizer's first U.K. ads for OTC Viagra put erectile dysfunction in perspective

Pfizer’s first ad campaign for over-the-counter Viagra in the U.K. uses comparisons to illustrate the relative commonplace incidence of erectile dysfunction. Print and out-of-home ads begin with the fact that “4.3 million men in the U.K. experience erectile problems.” The text-heavy ads then note comparisons such as, “That’s more men than there are cabs in the whole of the U.K.” or “That’s enough men to fill every major British football stadium.”

India hospital accused of misleading people in Glenmark trial without consent

A hospital in India has been accused of misleading over a dozen people into joining a clinical trial of a Glenmark Pharmaceuticals painkiller without their consent, drawing an investigation from the country’s drug regulators, according to an article by The Economic Times.

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