With Regeneron shares going for a peak price — after doubling from last fall — Sanofi is putting a $13 billion stake in their longtime partner on the auction block. And Regeneron is taking $5 billion of that action for themselves.

Sanofi — which has been decoupling from Regeneron for more than a year now — bought in big in early 2013, back when Regeneron’s stock was going for around $165 a share. Small investors flocked to the deal, buzzing about an imminent takeover. The buyout chatter wound down long ago.

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Ahead of Wednesday’s advisory committee hearing to discuss Biogen’s ALS drug tofersen, the FDA appeared open to approving the drug, newly released briefing documents show.

Citing the need for flexibility in a devastating disease like ALS, regulators signaled a willingness to consider greenlighting tofersen based on its effect on a certain protein associated with ALS despite a failed pivotal trial. The documents come after regulatory flexibility was part of the same rationale the agency expressed when approving an ALS drug last September from Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, indicating the FDA’s openness to approving new treatments for the disease.

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The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is now reviewing Novo Nordisk’s marketing violation that resulted in its loss of UK trade group membership last week. Novo Nordisk was suspended on Thursday from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) for two years after an investigation by its regulatory arm found the pharma broke its conduct rules.

MHRA said on Tuesday that its review of the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) investigation is standard practice. An MHRA spokesperson emphasized in an email to Endpoints News that the situation with Novo Nordisk is “incredibly rare” while also noting ABPI took “swift and proportionate action.”

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Altimmune’s attempt to catch up to Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 drugs hit an investor snag Tuesday after the biotech shared interim Phase II weight loss data.

The Maryland biotech’s pemvidutide is a GLP-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist meant to activate GLP-1 receptors to squash appetite and glucagon to ramp up energy use. The 2.4 mg dose showed a placebo-adjusted weight loss of 9.7% at week 24 of 48, which Jefferies analysts said would be comparable to Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide (Wegovy) and Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide (Mounjaro).

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The T-cell biotech Immatics is looking to make some changes to its pipeline.

Immatics released its 2022 financial results on Tuesday and announced that it’s planning to discontinue its program for IMA201, an experimental cell therapy for solid tumors that express the antigens known as MAGE4/8. It plans to shift focus to IMA401, a TCR bispecific which goes after the same target.

The German-based biotech said it will treat the remaining patients enrolled in the program before the discontinuation. No other reasons were given for the discontinuation. Endpoints News reached out to Immatics for more details but did not receive a response by press time.

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Just as pharma marketers finally make moves into TikTok, the threat of a US ban on the social media channel is now looming. Already banned on federal employee phones by an initial Congressional act, more bills and maybe bans are on the way. With rare bipartisan agreement, lawmakers have introduced legislation that would give the US president the power to ban TikTok (although not mentioned by name) and other foreign-owned technology platforms that represent a security threat to the US.

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