Things have not been going well in the old Ironwood pipeline.

Last month, the Boston-based pharmaceutical company announced that the second of just two experimental drugs they had left in the pipeline failed a Phase III trial, triggering significant layoffs. And today, their Peter Hecht-led R&D-focused spinoff, Cyclerion, announced that it had also failed their second major study in a year, forcing them to abandon the program.

Last October, the FDA OK’d a semi-controversial new antibiotic from Shionogi.

In one of two large studies for the drug, known chemically as cefiderocol and commercially as Fetroja, more patients died in the treatment arm than the control arm. But it had already cleared another randomized controlled trial and the agency determined the benefits at a time of growing drug resistance outweighed the risk.

For all the hype NASH drugs have received, the FDA has not been quick to roll out the red carpet for the most talked-about compounds. The agency gave breakthrough designation to Intercept’s obeticholic acid in 2015 but, since then, have declined to offer that seal to other late-stage drugs, including those from Gilead or Genfit.

On Monday afternoon, though, the French biotech Inventiva announced that they had won breakthrough status, becoming — by their count — the first company to receive the designation for a NASH drug since Intercept did 5 years ago. It was enough to send the company’s stock up 6%, from $13.65 to $14.50 pre-market.

SQZ Biotech is looking to go public, squeezing its way onto a long list of biotechs to hit Wall Street this year.

The Watertown, MA-based biotech filed on Friday for a $75 million IPO to develop its cell therapies, now the main focus following a shift in priorities to pipeline building. Number 1 on its list of priorities is its Roche-partnered antigen presenting cell (APC) tech, which is currently in Phase I for HPV and solid tumors.

About a year and a half after presenting positive topline results in Crohn’s disease, Eli Lilly gave its experimental IL-23 anti-inflammatory mirikizumab a boost Monday with new data.

The fresh info comes from the Phase II study and is a 52-week follow-up of the original trial. Mirikizumab showed that, after the initial 12-week period, patients who continued treatment for another 40 weeks saw further improvement in endoscopic response and Patient-Reported Outcomes remission.

Back in 2006, Novartis execs scooped up rights to Kyorin’s immunosuppressant drug program for KRP-203, an S1P drug that the pharma giant initially thought had some real potential.

But Mayzent (siponimod) ultimately stole the S1P show at Novartis, which would go on to win a first-in-class FDA OK in multiple sclerosis, with KRP-203 abandoned along the way still in early-stage development.

Until today.

Eli Lilly is on a roll.

Days after reporting positive data for its Covid-19 neutralizing antibodies, the pharma giant said adding its JAK inhibitor Olumiant to Gilead’s remdesivir cut the risk of death — although the result wasn’t statistically significant.

New data from ACTT-2, an adoptive treatment trial conducted by the NIH, are in line with what investigators disclosed a month ago regarding improvements in time to recovery.