⇨ Ab­b­Vie wants to ex­plore how a com­bi­na­tion of its an­ti-c-Met an­ti­body drug AB­BV-399 will work in com­bi­na­tion with Bris­tol-My­ers’ Op­di­vo in treat­ing non-small cell lung can­cer. This is the lat­est in hun­dreds of com­bo stud­ies with check­point drugs, and Ab­b­Vie is tak­ing the lead on ex­e­cut­ing the Phase Ib study.

⇨ Shares of In­ter­cept Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals $ICPT tum­bled bad­ly af­ter the FDA is­sued a warn­ing about the risk of death and in­jury pa­tients face tak­ing their drug Ocali­va. Some an­a­lysts spec­u­late that the FDA may be about to slap a black box warn­ing on the drug — sold for pri­ma­ry bil­iary cholan­gi­tis — that could crimp sales.

⇨ In­ter­est­ed in the in­dus­try’s pipeline of new Alzheimer’s drugs? If so, you should check out PhRMA’s new list cov­er­ing dozens of ex­per­i­men­tal meds in the clin­ic.

The sign is still there, a quaint reminder of whitewashed concrete not 5 miles from Genentech’s sprawling, chrome-and-glass campus: South Francisco The Industrial City. 

The city keeps the old sign, first erected in 1923, as a tourist site and a kind of civic memento to the days it packed meat, milled lumber and burned enough steel to earn the moniker “Smokestack of the Peninsula.” But the real indication of where you are and how much has changed both in San Francisco and in the global economy since a couple researchers and investors rented out an empty warehouse 40 years ago comes in a far smaller blue sign, resembling a Rotary Club post, off the highway: South San Francisco, The Birthplace of Biotech.

Novo Nordisk’s priority review voucher on oral semaglutide has paid off. The FDA approval for the GLP-1 drug hit late Friday morning, around six months after the NDA filing.

Rybelsus will be the first GLP-1 pill to enter the type 2 diabetes market — a compelling offering that analysts have pegged as a blockbuster drug with sales estimates ranging from $2 billion to $5 billion.

Ozempic, the once-weekly injectable formulation of semaglutide, brought in around $552 million (DKK 3.75 billion) in the first half of 2019.

There are two updates on the lawsuit against Purdue Pharma over its role in fueling the opioid epidemic, as the Sackler family threatens to walk away from their pledge to pay out $3 billion if a bankruptcy judge does not stop outstanding state lawsuits against them. At the same time, the company has asked permission to pay millions in bonuses to select employees.

Purdue filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy this week as part of its signed resolution to over 2,000 lawsuits. The deal would see the Sackler family that owns Purdue give $3 billion from their personal wealth and the company turned into a trust committed to curbing and reversing overdoses.

While Novartis painstakingly works to mop up the stench of the data manipulation scandal associated with its expensive gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) Zolgensma— rival Biogen is attempting to expand the use of its SMA therapy, Spinraza. 

The US drugmaker $BIIB secured US approval for Spinraza for use in the often fatal genetic disease in 2016. The approval covered a broad range of patients with infantile-onset (most likely to develop Type 1) SMA.