Eli Lil­ly took a hit Tues­day morn­ing as the phar­ma gi­ant re­vealed just how painful the with­draw­al of Lartru­vo will be for its on­col­o­gy op­er­a­tions while the Cialis fran­chise gets eat­en up by gener­ics. Less vis­i­ble was a de­ci­sion to dump two mid-stage drugs from its pipeline op­er­a­tions, both of which had fig­ured promi­nent­ly as two of its best longterm hopes in the field.

Out in the Q1 cleanup at Lil­ly is the CHK1 drug prex­as­ert­ib (LY2606368) and their Phase II PI3k/mTOR in­hibitor, LY3023414. Both of these drugs were spot­light­ed in the sum­mer of 2017 as Eli Lil­ly an­nounced plans to con­cen­trate their R&D group in on­col­o­gy on 7 key pro­grams they felt had the best shot at go­ing on to be­com­ing ma­jor play­ers in the mar­ket. 

The oth­er 5 projects were: TIM-3 MAb, PD-L1 MAb, ERK 1/2 in­hibitor, TGFb RI KI.

At the same time, Lil­ly al­so an­nounced plans to part­ner out 7 oth­er drugs.

Lil­ly to­day had to cut its 2019 earn­ings fore­cast by $3 bil­lion on its col­lec­tive headaches, drop­ping in­to the $22.0 to $22.5 bil­lion range. Its shares $LLY tum­bled 3% as an­a­lysts got a chance to chew over the un­ex­pect­ed re­ver­sal, which comes as Lil­ly’s di­a­betes fran­chise re­mains un­der in­tense pres­sure to rein in prices.

These pres­sures ar­rive af­ter Lil­ly has tak­en a se­ries of hits that have crimped its ex­pec­ta­tions. This morn­ing In­cyte not­ed that it de­cid­ed to cut any fur­ther R&D in­vest­ments on their part­nered pro­gram for baric­i­tinib, which on­ly man­aged to crawl to the mar­ket at a low­er dose than they had ad­vo­cat­ed for af­ter reg­u­la­tors raised safe­ty con­cerns for the JAK in­hibitor.

Im­age: Shut­ter­stock

Vertex has clinched a priority review for the all-important cystic fibrosis triple that will blaze the trail for treating a large group of patients unhelped by its current drugs.

FDA regulators have set a PDUFA date of March 19, 2020, just a year after the Boston biotech posted positive Phase III results showing that people with two F508del mutations experienced statistically significant improvements in lung function after a 4-week regimen of VX-445, tezacaftor and ivacaftor. After reviewing 24-week data among patients with one F508del mutation and one minimal function mutation — and thoroughly comparing the VX-445 triple with another combo featuring VX-659 on scores like safety, drug-drug interactions, and photosensitivity — Vertex ultimately went with VX-445.

Just a few weeks after bagging $80 million in a deal to collaborate with Gingko Bioworks on its special blend of engineered bacteria used for “living therapeutics,” little Synlogic in Boston $SYBX is tossing one of its two clinical programs after watching an early-stage study go down in defeat.

Their Phase Ib/IIa study for SYNB1020 to counter the accumulation of ammonia in the body, a condition called hyperammonemia or urea cycle disorder, floundered at the interim readout, forcing the biotech to kill it and reserve its cash for pipeline therapies with greater potential.

Last week, Elanco explicitly dodged answering questions about its rumored interest in Bayer’s animal health business in its post-earnings call. On Tuesday, the Eli Lilly spinoff disclosed it was purchasing the German drug maker’s veterinary unit in a cash-and-stock deal worth $7.6 billion. 

Elanco $ELAN has been busy on the deal-making front. In April, it laid out plans to swallow its partner, Kansas-based pet therapeutics company Aratana $PETX. A July report by Reuters suggested a potential Bayer deal was being explored, and Bloomberg last week said the deal was imminent, citing sources. 

Months ago, data on J&J’s $JNJ Invokana indicated the diabetes drug conferred cardiovascular (CV) benefit in patients who do and do not have preexisting CV disease. On Tuesday, AstraZeneca’s $AZN rival treatment, Farxiga, was shown to cut the risk of CV death or the worsening of heart failure in patients with heart disease, in a landmark trial.

The treatments, in addition to Jardiance from Eli Lilly $LLY, belong to a class of diabetes drugs called sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, which work by curbing the absorption of glucose via the kidneys so that surplus glucose is excreted through urination.