Today, a brief rundown of news involving Eli Lilly and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, as well as updates from Servier, Ultragenyx, Boehringer Ingelheim and ANI Pharmaceuticals that you may have missed.
Eli Lilly will offer its obesity drugs Zepbound and Foundayo on Hims & Hers’ telehealth platform, the companies announced Friday. Under the deal, eligible patients with a prescription can use Hims to gain access to Lilly’s drugs at the same “self-pay” prices available elsewhere. Foundayo carries an initial $149 monthly price tag, while Zepbound starts at $299 per month. Hims had previously used legal loopholes to make lower-cost, compounded versions of GLP-1 weight loss drugs. But it changed course in March after a legal challenge from Novo, adopting a new strategy based on providing U.S. consumers access to an array of FDA-approved weight loss medicines. Hims struck a similar deal with Novo in March. — Ben Fidler
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals is switching up its sales leadership, announcing Thursday that Chief Commercial Officer Tolga Tanguler is leaving the company. Alnylam is working with an executive search firm to find Tanguler’s replacement and will update investors "in due course." Alnylam credited Tanguler for establishing a "strong foundation for future growth." The company, however, has seen its share price plummet about 60% this year over concerns about the sales trajectory of its top drug Amvuttra. The drug's "growth rate visibility is murky at best," wrote William Blair analyst Myles Minter, in a Thursday client note. — Ben Fidler
Boehringer Ingelheim on Wednesday announced a wide-ranging alliance with China-based Sino Biopharmaceutical centered around next-generation cancer drugs. The partnership involves six preclinical programs under development at Sino subsidiaries LaNova Medicines and Beijing Tide Pharmaceutical. Boehringer didn’t provide specifics, but said all of these prospects are based on antibody-drug conjugate and T cell engager technology. Sino is conducting early development, after which Boehringer can exercise options for either most or full commercial rights. Boehringer is shelling out $358 million in upfront and near-term payments, and could add up to $7 billion in additional consideration. — Delilah Alvarado
An experimental drug Servier acquired from Edgewise Therapeutics five months ago failed a mid-stage trial in a rare neuromuscular disease. According to Servier, treatment with the therapy, sevasemten, didn’t lead to a statistically significant benefit on a test of motor function in patients with Becker muscular dystrophy. The findings were “not aligned with certain observations made in previous clinical studies,” Servier said. The French pharmaceutical firm paid Edgewise $1.55 billion up front for sevasemten in June and promised as much as $1.1 billion more if certain regulatory and commercial goals were met. — Delilah Alvarado
Ultragenyx will cut 1,000 employees, or 20% of its workforce, as part of an effort to significantly reduce research and development costs, the company said in an earnings report Tuesday. Ultragenyx suffered a major setback in September when an experimental gene therapy for Angelman syndrome fell short in a Phase 3 trial, erasing what had been seen as a blockbuster market opportunity. It’s now cutting jobs, halting all studies of that Angelman’s therapy and shelving a candidate for Wilson’s disease. Those moves should lower R&D costs in 2027 by at least 50% when compared to the company’s spending in 2025, Ultragenyx said. — Delilah Alvarado
ANI Pharmaceuticals on Thursday offered to acquire Swedish rare disease drug developer Egetis Therapeutics in a deal worth $560 million. ANI bid 11.25 Swedish krona per Egetis share, a 27% premium to the company’s average trading price over the previous two months. Egetis sells a drug known as Emcitate. It’s the only approved treatment in the U.S. and Europe for peripheral thyrotoxicosis — abnormally high levels of circulating thyroid hormones — in people with a rare genetic condition known as Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome. ANI expects the drug to generate as much as $300 million in peak annual sales. — Delilah Alvarado
