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Aug 11, 2023

SPECIAL REPORT—20 years in, Singapore still searches for its biotech success story


Biogen, Sage's postpartum depression approval overshadowed by larger rejection


Sage braces for layoffs, pipeline cuts as shares tank in wake of zuranolone's MDD rejection


Echoing Pfizer, BioNTech says it's 'carefully watching' costs as COVID vaccine sales sink


Vistagen's stock soars 1,272% after social anxiety nasal spray hits phase 3 goals


Amgen's hyped Humira biosimilar fritters away its exclusivity advantage

 

Featured

20 years in, Singapore still searches for its biotech success story

Singapore set out on a journey to become a biotech hub back in 2000, when local government made biomedical research the “fourth pillar” of the city state’s economy. With the sudden collapse of Tessa Therapeutics, Singapore is still waiting for its big biotech success story.
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Top Stories

Biogen, Sage's postpartum depression approval overshadowed by larger rejection

Friday, the U.S. FDA gave the green light to zuranolone. Now going by the commercial moniker Zurzuvae, the partners’ drug represents the first and only oral treatment for women with PPD, which affects some 500,000 patients in the U.S. each year, according to Biogen and Sage.

Sage braces for layoffs, pipeline cuts as shares tank in wake of zuranolone's MDD rejection

Sage Therapeutics is preparing to reduce its head count and pipeline in response to the FDA’s rejection of a Biogen-partnered drug as a treatment for major depressive disorder.

Echoing Pfizer, BioNTech says it's 'carefully watching' costs as COVID vaccine sales sink

As Pfizer eyes possible cost cuts, its COVID vaccine partner BioNTech is “carefully watching” its spending, the German company’s finance chief Jens Holstein said Monday.

Vistagen's stock soars 1,272% after social anxiety nasal spray hits phase 3 goals

After a bout of bad luck, Vistagen’s social anxiety spray has puffed out a phase 3 win—data that have sent the biotech's stock soaring.  

Amgen's hyped Humira biosimilar fritters away its exclusivity advantage

When Amgen launched the first biosimilar to compete with AbbVie’s Humira in the U.S., the company looked forward to six months of exclusivity in competing one-on-one against the immunology powerhouse. But Thursday, Amgen reported second-quarter sales of just $19 million for Amjevita, a 63% drop sequentially.

Neuralink nabs $280M after scoring FDA OK to begin human trials of brain implant

Neuralink, the Elon Musk-founded company developing an implant he’s described as “a Fitbit in your skull,” recently announced that it had gotten the go-ahead from the FDA to begin clinical trials—and now, it has secured extra funding to see the studies through.

Merck, Ginkgo Bioworks strike deal worth up to $490M to 'optimize' biologics manufacturing

Under the agreement, Ginkgo will seek to streamline production and boost output through cell engineering and protein characterization, the companies said in a Monday release.

Voyager Therapeutics adds anti-amyloid gene therapy to Alzheimer's pipeline

The company is tripling down on its Alzheimer’s franchise, rounding out its tau-focused pipeline with a gene therapy aimed at amyloid-beta plaques.

Daiichi Sankyo tipped to dominate antibody-drug conjugate market through 2029

The antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) market is emerging as one of the most competitive areas in pharma, with companies such as AstraZeneca, Gilead and Pfizer investing billions into the space. Amid the vying for commercial position, analysts at GlobalData expect Daiichi Sankyo to dominate the space through 2029.
 
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