Dive Brief Thermo Fisher Scientific has notified the state of California that it plans to lay off 74 employees in Petaluma by Feb. 1, as the laboratory instruments maker further streamlines operations to reduce costs. The layoffs were reported in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notice. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company is not renewing its 10-year lease on the Petaluma facility, which expires in July, the North Bay Business Journal reported in November. Severance actions associated with facility consolidations and cost reduction measures affected about 4% of the company’s workforce in 2023, Thermo Fisher said in its third-quarter report. Dive Insight Workforce reductions rippled through the medtech industry last year as companies focused on improving margins while navigating an uncertain post-pandemic economy. After closing some facilities and reducing staff levels in California earlier in the year due to reduced COVID testing demand, Thermo Fisher signaled in July that it ...
By PharmaCompass BMS buys Karuna for US$ 14 billion; Astra-Ionis’ nerve damage drug bags FDA nod This week’s Phispers is a double bill with news from last week and the first days of the New Year. Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) and AstraZeneca have been on year-end shopping sprees with the former picking up Karuna Therapeutics for a whopping US$ 14 billion and the latter expanding its already dominant presence in China through an acquisition and a deal. Novo Nordisk is investing over US$ 2 billion, this time in Ireland, to meet the skyrocketing demand for its blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy. In drug approvals, AstraZeneca and Ionis Pharmaceuticals’ drug Wainua became the first self-administered treatment in the United States for a rare nerve damage disease. In trial news, a potential first-in-class small molecule that was on course to becoming the first new drug approved in 20 years ...
On December 26, Zhengda Tianqing received the Certificate of Drug Registration approved by the State Drug Administration, approving the registration and listing of Everolimus Tablets (trade name: Chingvishi). Evervimox Tablet is not only the first generic in China, but also the first product that has been granted 12 months of market exclusivity due to “first generic approval + first successful patent challenge” since the implementation of the mechanism for early resolution of drug patent disputes (Drug Patent Linkage System) in China. The approved indications of Zhengda Tianqing Everolimus Tablets are: (1) Adult patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma who have failed prior treatment with sunitinib or sorafenib. (2) Adult patients with unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic, well-differentiated (moderately differentiated or highly differentiated) progressive pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. (3) Adult patients with unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic, well-differentiated, progressive non-functional gastrointestinal or lung-derived neuroendocrine tumors (NET). (4) Adult and pediatric patients with ...
Despite competitive pressure from a buzzy CRISPR therapy, bluebird bio keeps striding forward with its sickle cell disease gene therapy Lyfgenia. The Massachusetts biotech has signed a second outcomes-based reimbursement agreement for Lyfgenia, according to a securities filing. The deal pushes Lyfgenia’s coverage range to nearly 200 million people in the U.S., up from the previous 100 million when bluebird signed the first agreement three weeks ago. Bluebird pulled off the feat within a month of winning FDA approval for Lyfgenia in SCD patients who have a history of the painful blood flow blockade episodes known as vaso-occlusive events. And it comes despite the company pricing Lyfgenia at a wholesale acquisition cost that’s about 40% higher than Vertex and CRISPR Therapeutics’ rival gene therapy Casgevy. Under these outcomes-based agreements, bluebird is offering a discount if a patient is hospitalized because of vaso-occlusion events within three years after treatment. In addition ...
In 2022, fueled by its powerhouse COVID products, Pfizer became the first company in the history of the biopharma industry to top $100 billion in annual revenue. What would the New York drugmaker do for an encore? In 2023, Pfizer went from generating the most sales in the industry to gaining the most approvals. With seven FDA nods in 2023, Pfizer had more than double that of any other company. It’s also more than twice as many as every drugmaker over each of the last three years. You need to go back to 2019, when Novartis scored six approvals, to find a company that approached what Pfizer accomplished in 2023. Pfizer’s splurge included four approvals in a dizzying five weeks in May and June. And all but one of the seven products has been pegged by analysts as a potential blockbuster. Two of the newly approved Pfizer treatments were acquired ...
AbbVie is entering 2024 with a foothold in the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) field thanks to its late-2023 buyout of ImmunoGen worth more than $10 billion. But according to a new securities filing, AbbVie didn’t pursue the cancer drugmaker until other suitors were already at the negotiating table. ImmunoGen’s recent round of M&A deliberations began in April, according to the filing, when a company only identified as “Party A” reached out to CEO Mark Enyedy expressing interest in a potential transaction. Before that, ImmunoGen had been routinely evaluating potential opportunities for deals of various types, but the interest from Party A struck up a round of talks that ultimately led to the sale. However, Party A’s note of interest came without a proposed purchase price, a move that the company’s advisors at Goldman Sachs and Lazard called “unusual but not unprecedented.” Before the talks moved along, ImmunoGen presented its first-quarter earnings ...
Here is a selection of recent executive hires, promotions and layoffs occurring across the healthcare industry. By KATIE ADAMS This roundup will be published monthly. It is meant to highlight some of healthcare’s recent hiring news and is not intended to be comprehensive. If you have news about an executive appointment, resignation or layoff that you would like to share for this roundup or the MedCity Moves podcast, please reach out to moves@medcitynews.com. Here is a selection of recent executive hires, promotions, departures and layoffs occurring across the healthcare industry. Hires Aledade, an independent primary care network focused on value-based care, brought Rosemary Weldon onto its team as its new chief product officer. She spent the last decade at CVS Health, where she most recently served as vice president of digital health product management. Amgen welcomed James Bradner to its C-suite, where he now serves as chief scientific officer and ...
A U.S. judge has upheld the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) decision to block IQVIA’s long-running attempt to buy the owner of pharma digital ad specialist DeepIntent. The long-running saga centers on IQVIA, the leading biopharma data provider, and its attempt to snap up Propel Media for its DeepIntent business. IQVIA tried to buy Propel back in 2022 (financials details remain unknown), but the FTC last year put a block on the deal, arguing that it would inevitably give IQVIA a market-leading position in advertising for healthcare products, namely prescription drugs, to doctors and other healthcare professionals. According to the official complaint filed by the FTC in 2023, the merger would result in a “heightened motivation” for IQVIA to withhold critical information, hindering competition among rival companies and potential new entrants. Additionally, the complaint asserts that the merger would lead to decreased market competitiveness. The company is one of the world’s ...
Amgen is getting into golf. Having acquired a clutch of sporting sponsorships in the Horizon Therapeutics acquisition, the big biotech has decided to keep the marketing relationship with the Irish Open and other deals going under its own brand. Dublin-headquartered Horizon, which was led by a man once described as “an avid golfer”, was a regular sponsor of sporting events, particularly golf in Ireland. In 2022, the company inked a six-year deal worth $15.5 million to be the title sponsor of the Irish Open. The deal was part of a roster of sponsorships that continued to grow even as Amgen worked to close its $27.8 billion takeover of the company. Now, Amgen has confirmed the commitment to Irish golf will outlive Horizon. Starting next year, the formerly Horizon-sponsored tournament will be rebranded as the Amgen Irish Open. The professional Irish golfers Shane Lowry, Pádraig Harrington, Séamus Power and Brendan Lawlor ...
Cytokinetics drug aficamten met the main goal of a pivotal test in obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. If approved, the daily pill would compete against a Bristol Myers Squibb drug projected to become a blockbuster seller. By FRANK VINLUAN An experimental Cytokinetics drug has Phase 3 data showing it improved the ability of the heart to work during exercise. In addition to meeting this main goal of its pivotal test in a rare cardiovascular disease, the results look competitive with a Bristol Myers Squibb product already on the market. The Cytokinetics drug, aficamten, is a potential treatment for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (oHCM), a condition that leads to thickening of heart muscle that makes it harder for the organ to pump blood. Patients experience fatigue and shortness of breath. The condition can progress to heart failure. Cytokinetics reported preliminary Phase 3 results on Wednesday showing that after 24 weeks, treatment with its once-daily ...
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