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Today's Rundown

Play-by-play: How Sanofi jacked up its offer twice to seal the $1.9B deal for Kadmon
Facing backlash from scientific community, Cassava drops interim Alzheimer's data with plenty of caveats
Walgreens Boots Alliance makes $970M investment in Shields Health Solutions
An Epic success: FDA approves Abbott's upgraded, longer-lasting replacement mitral valve
Reckitt's Mucinex ushers in cold and flu season with tribute to Latinos making a difference
OIG: Most states not doing enough to monitor Medicaid telehealth fraud for behavioral health services
Lonza's march of manufacturing expansion continues with more backyard plans
Striking deals with Blueprint COO Haviland
Kaufman Hall: Hospitals could lose $54B this year due to more expenses, sicker patients
SAB Biotherapeutics banks $60M more in funding from U.S. officials for COVID-19 antibody
FDA clears Paige's AI as first program to spot prostate cancer in tissue slides
COVID-19 tracker: J&J teams up with HealthVerity; Amnesty International blasts vaccine makers

Featured Story

Play-by-play: How Sanofi jacked up its offer twice to seal the $1.9B deal for Kadmon

By Angus Liu

With an existing transplant portfolio, Sanofi is naturally fit to be the new owner of Kadmon, developer of graft-versus-host disease drug Rezurock. And the French pharma spent less than three months to successfully convince the biotech of that and at the right price.

Facing backlash from scientific community, Cassava drops interim Alzheimer's data with plenty of caveats

By Annalee Armstrong

As the scientific community continues to debate the validity of Cassava Sciences’ clinical data for the Alzheimer’s disease candidate simufilam, the biotech is hoping some interim results will soothe worried investors.

Walgreens Boots Alliance makes $970M investment in Shields Health Solutions

By Paige Minemyer

The Walgreens Boots Alliance is making a $970M investment in Shields Health Solutions, a prominent company in health system-owned specialty pharmacy.

An Epic success: FDA approves Abbott's upgraded, longer-lasting replacement mitral valve

By Andrea Park

With a green light from the FDA, Abbott is scaling up its replacement mitral and aortic valve portfolio to epic proportions—or, more specifically, to Epic Plus proportions.

Reckitt's Mucinex ushers in cold and flu season with tribute to Latinos making a difference

By Beth Snyder Bulik

Reckitt's Mucinex brand is spotlighting Latino front-line workers with a campaign that celebrates their contributions—and their need to stay healthy. A nurse, a boxing coach and an esthetician in southern California star in the "Our Community Needs You" effort.

OIG: Most states not doing enough to monitor Medicaid telehealth fraud for behavioral health services

By Robert King

States aren't doing enough to monitor for fraud and determine the impact of telehealth services for treating behavioral health for Medicaid enrollees, a new report from a federal watchdog finds.

Lonza's march of manufacturing expansion continues with more backyard plans

By Joseph Keenan

Swiss CDMO giant Lonza, which has been on a growth spurt around the world, is now planning more improvements to expand production capabilities in its own backyard.

Striking deals with Blueprint COO Haviland

By Amirah Al Idrus

Blueprint Medicines’ portfolio of molecularly targeted treatments is the “sweet spot” for a small company, but sometimes a deal is the best way to move forward. Fierce Biotech caught up with the biotech's Chief Operating Officer Kate Haviland to talk about her approach to dealmaking.

Kaufman Hall: Hospitals could lose $54B this year due to more expenses, sicker patients

By Robert King

Hospitals could lose an estimated $54 billion this year as higher acuity cases and greater expenses could offset recovery in volumes, a new analysis finds.

SAB Biotherapeutics banks $60M more in funding from U.S. officials for COVID-19 antibody

By Annalee Armstrong

SAB Biotherapeutics has snared another $60.5 million from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to fund an antibody program to treat COVID-19. This brings the total funding SAB's received from the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority and the DOD to $200 million.

FDA clears Paige's AI as first program to spot prostate cancer in tissue slides

By Conor Hale

Tech companies have been questing for years to develop artificial intelligence able to help diagnose cancer—and now one has an FDA clearance to do just that. The software highlights areas of a standard prostate biopsy image most likely to contain cancer and flags them for further review by a trained professional.

COVID-19 tracker: J&J teams up with HealthVerity; Amnesty International blasts vaccine makers

By Noah Higgins-Dunn,Kevin Dunleavy,Fraiser Kansteiner,Emmy Lucas

Biopharmas such as Clover and SAB are seeing progress with their COVID-related programs. Plus more.

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