It's been one scorcher of a summer. Fittingly, industry news was red hot as companies inked expensive deals, secured noteworthy approvals and modified their corporate structures.
Below, BioPharma Dive recaps some of the biggest stories from the last few months.
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Roche's Genentech planning to lay off 223 employees
The layoffs, all of which will be from Genentech's South San Francisco, California, headquarters, continue a round of job cuts at the pharma giant. Last year, Roche confirmed plans to eliminiate 365 positions at production facilities in California and Switzerland as well as 157 positions in its U.S. diabetes care unit. Notably, the cuts come as biosimilar competition threatens three of Roche's top-selling brands. Read More >>
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Novartis to spin out Alcon into standalone device company
Though still quite profitable, Alcon has become less of a focus for Novartis as its core business coalesced around therapeutic areas such as oncology and immunology. After months of strategic review, the Swiss pharma decided to hold onto Alcon's ophthalmology drugs but spin out the devices part of the unit as a standalone company. Read More >>
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AbbVie to submit upadacitinib to FDA after 5th trial win
AbbVie has, as at least one analyst said, an "ambitious" goal for its JAK inhibitor upadacitinib: $6.5 billion in annual sales by 2025. AbbVie expects the drug to gain its first approval in moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis by year's end, supported by a positive readout from the Phase 3 SELECT-EARLY study. Read More >>
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Pfizer rejiggers business units
The new units are Innovative Medicines, which includes the existing Innovative Health business, biosimilars and a new Hospital Medicines arm; Established Products, which includes some generics and most of Pfizer's off-patent oral solid dose drugs; and Consumer Health, which is under strategic review. Read More >>
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Seeking to adopt AI, drugmakers search for right mix of talent
Artifical intelligence may be crucial for the future of drug discovery, yet it's rare to find a drug researcher who has extensive experience with the technology. "Most candidates know more about life science or more about computer science; hybrids are extremely valuable in this industry," said Jeremy Jenkins, head of data science for the chemical biology and therapeutics group at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Read More >>
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In first, FDA approves RNA interference drug from Alnylam
A 16-year research journey culminated in the August approval of Onpattro (patisiran), a hereditary ATTR amyloidosis treatment that resulted from Nobel Prize-winning work. The treatment comes at a lofty $450,000 list price. Read More >>
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Novartis picks up IL-17 inhibitor in deal worth over $1B
For $111 million upfront and potentially another $1 billion in milestones, Novartis secured rights to an investigational atopic dermatitis drug jointly developed by Galapagos and MorphoSys. The big pharma has already achieved success with other interleukin inhibitors like Ilaris (canakinumab) and Cosentyx (secukinumab). Read More >>
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Aimovig launch bolsters hopes for blockbuster sales
Investment bank Leerink raised its forecast for global sales of CGRP-targeting antibodies to nearly $4.5 billion by 2022 after data showed total weekly prescriptions of Amgen and Novartis' preventative migraine drug Aimovig (erenumab) rose to almost 10,000 by Aug. 10. Read More >>
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AbbVie's new endometriosis drug to cost $10K per year
Orilissa (elagolix) is another asset AbbVie expects to go blockbuster, but there are some headwinds. Drug pricing watchdog ICER has raised concerns about Orilissa's impact on the healthcare system, while the Food and Drug Administration is requiring AbbVie to conduct post-marketing safety studies. Read More >>
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Novartis hits CAR-T manufacturing snag as Kymriah sales disappoint
Second quarter Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) sales of $16 million were weaker than Wall Street expected and again behind those of Gilead Sciences' rival therapy Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel). Product variability, particularly for Kymriah shipments headed to adult lymphoma patients, has been one of the main challenges facing the brand. Read More >>