Today, a brief rundown of news from Novo Nordisk and Terns Pharmaceuticals, as well as updates from Corcept Therapeutics and BioMérieux that you may have missed.

Early numbers from Novo Nordisk’s launch of an oral form of Wegovy continued to outpace expectations. According to analytics shared with Wall Street analysts, about 18,000 prescriptions were written for the week ending Jan. 16, a “very strong” figure following the roughly 3,000 issued the prior week, wrote Evercore ISI’s Umer Raffat. As with the previous total, the number didn’t include prescriptions through Novo’s online service and, notably at least so far, hasn’t come at the expense of the injectable Wegovy, Raffat noted. Novo shares ticked up another 2% and have climbed about 20% over the last month. — Ben Fidler 

Terns Pharmaceuticals has amended the licensing deal surrounding its closely watched leukemia drug. According to a regulatory filing made public Thursday, Terns acquired from China’s Hansoh Pharmaceutical the ability to license the drug, known as TERN-701 and in testing for chronic myeloid leukemia, in territories where Hansoh doesn't have rights. Under the terms of a 2020 deal, Hansoh had to clear other partnering decisions. But for a $1 million upfront payment and a small royalty, Terns can now seek other collaborations "without consent" from Hansoh, noted Mizuho Securities' Graig Suvannavejh. The move should "clear the way for a potential partnership," he added. TERN-701 is seen by some analysts as potentially disrupting the treatment landscape for CML. — Ben Fidler

Corcept Therapeutics said Thursday that an experimental treatment it’s developing helped extend survival in a pivotal trial in ovarian cancer. A regimen involving the drug, relacorilant, and a kind of chemotherapy was associated with a 35% reduction in the risk of death compared to treatment with that chemotherapy alone. Corcept had previously revealed that the treatment met its other main goal in the study by meaningfully improving progression-free survival. The Food and Drug Administration in December rejected an application to approve relacorilant for a kind of hypertension. It’s set to make a decision on the drug’s use in ovarian cancer by July 11. Corcept shares climbed by double digits Thursday. — Delilah Alvarado

French firm BioMérieux has acquired all of the rights it didn't own in Accellix, a company that provides quality control assistance and helps speed up the manufacturing of cell therapies. BioMérieux has been collaborating with Accellix since 2020 and, prior to the acquisition, owned 10% of its stock. On Thursday, it agreed to pay 35 million euros, or about $41 million, to buy the rest of the company. The deal puts BioMérieux "at the forefront of innovation and quality control for advanced therapies," which include cell and gene therapies, the company said in a statement. — Ben Fidler