Sanofi is facing down a strike threat in Korea amid an increasing number of confrontations between Big Pharma and their labor unions over pay demands.

A Korean publication cites labor officials who have been unhappy over the company’s offer of a 1.5% increase in pay, in keeping with inflation. They cite their own inflation numbers as well as increases in Korean sales during the pandemic, originally seeking a 7% pay hike and then lowering the demand to 4%.

Following a disappointing data reveal and subsequent stock drop late last year, Radius Health is now facing an activist attack from two minority investors aiming to right the ship.

Velan Capital Investment Management and Repertoire Partners filed their proxy statements Tuesday morning in a bid to nominate a slate of three new board members at Radius’ annual shareholder meeting next month. The Velan-Repertoire group, which collectively owns a 7.7% stake, alleges Radius’ current directors have undertaken a bad commercial strategy for its one approved product and are unfit to serve because they own almost no shares in the company.

While Moderna and Pfizer have taken much of the limelight when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines, AstraZeneca’s boss is standing by his company’s development efforts.

In an interview with the BBC on Monday, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot claimed the company’s Covid-19 vaccine has managed to save a million lives despite facing setbacks. Soriot addressed studies linking the vaccine to rare blood clots, but in looking back on the vaccine’s development, he told BBC: “I don’t think I would do anything differently from what we did.“

The biotech bear market continues to put pressure on small and mid-cap companies, with another startup undergoing a shift.

Cancer-focused biotech Vincerx revealed it would lay off 33% of its staff Monday afternoon as part of an effort to get its lead program through two Phase I studies. The move comes a little less than two years after Vincerx went public via a SPAC, and after its stock $VINC has fallen more than 80% in 2022.

A year after a Supreme Court opinion put the final nail in the coffin for Amarin’s fish-oil heart drug, the biotech is making some changes to keep its doors open.

The Irish drugmaker announced early Monday that it will be cutting 65% of its US commercial staff, which will effectively result in a 90% drop from pre-pandemic levels and a 40% reduction in overall employee numbers. On top of that, it would also implement certain “reductions and reallocations in overall selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses as well as savings related to refining the Company’s R&D strategy to a more focused, stepwise approach for its FDC program.”

Yumanity has found that “strategic alternative” it started searching for early this year as its share price shriveled, forcing deep staff cuts.

The suffering biotech has agreed to sell off most of its pipeline — including a partially-held Phase I Parkinson’s drug, dubbed YTX-7739, and unpartnered discovery-stage neuroscience product candidates — to J&J for $26 million in cash. And it’s executing a reverse merger with the private biotech Kineta, which will wind up with the public listing and Yumanity’s Merck-partnered ALS/frontotemporal lobar degeneration program.