Citing ‘challenging economic environment,’ PhIII-ready microbiome biotech lays off 20% of staffers

Bernat Olle, Vedanta Biosciences CEO

August 11, 2022 07:30 AM EDT

Citing 'challenging economic environment,' PhIII-ready microbiome biotech lays off 20% of staffers

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

The market downturn isn’t just sweeping up public biotechs.

Vedanta Biosciences, a developer of oral drugs derived from the human microbiome, is laying off about 20% of its staff — an unfortunately common occurrence these days. But CEO Bernat Olle took the unusual step of sharing the decision on LinkedIn and offering to connect the employees being let go with any company that’s hiring in their areas.

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The Factors Driving a Rapid Evolution of Gene & Cell Therapy and CAR-T Clinical Research in APAC

Kasey Kime

Director of Regulatory Affairs at Novotech

APAC is the fastest growing region globally for cell & gene therapy trials representing more than a third of all cell & gene studies globally, with China leading in the region.

APAC is the leading location globally for CAR-T trials with China attracting ~60% of all CAR-T trials globally between 2015-2022. The number of CAR-T trials initiated by Western companies has rapidly increased in recent years (current CAGR of about 60%), with multiple targets being explored including CD19, CD20, CD22, BCMA, CD30, CD123, CD33, CD38, and CD138.

September 24, 2022 06:00 AM EDT

Weekly

The Endpoints 11; bluebird's $3M gene therapy; Biogen tout new neuro data; Harsh reviews for cancer drugs; and more

Amber Tong

Senior Editor

Welcome back to Endpoints Weekly, your review of the week’s top biopharma headlines. Want this in your inbox every Saturday morning? Current Endpoints readers can visit their reader profile to add Endpoints Weekly. New to Endpoints? Sign up here.

Reading about John Carroll’s pick of biotech’s most promising startups has become a treasured tradition. If you ever get curious about previous classes of the Endpoints 11, you can find all of them (plus a number of our other regular specials) here.

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September 23, 2022 12:30 PM EDT

Pharma

Manufacturing

EMA warns of shortages of two Boehringer heart drugs due to a spike in demand

Tyler Patchen

News Reporter

The EMA is putting EU member states on alert over the shortage of two drugs that counter heart attacks due to an uptick in demand.

On Friday, the EMA sent out a warning that two Boehringer Ingelheim drugs are experiencing a shortage: Actilyse and Metalyse. The drugs are used as emergency treatments for adults experiencing acute myocardial infarction, or a heart attack, by dissolving blood clots that have formed in the blood vessels.

ENDPOINTS CAREERS

Head of Site Finance mRNA - Cell & Gene

Lonza

Geleen, Netherland

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September 22, 2022 07:01 AM EDTUpdated September 23, 04:21 AM

Special

The Endpoints 11: The top private biotechs in pursuit of new drugs. Pushing the envelope with powerful new technologies

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Right around the beginning of the year, we got a close-up look at what happens after a boom ripples through biotech. The crash of life sciences stocks in Q1 was heard around the world.

In the months since, we’ve seen the natural Darwinian down cycle take effect. Reverse mergers made a comeback, with more burned out shells to go public at a time IPOs and road shows are out of favor. And no doubt some of the more recent arrivals on the investing side of the business are finding greener pastures.

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Wendy Lund, WPP chief client officer for health and wellness

September 22, 2022 10:36 AM EDTUpdated 12:10 PM

People

Pharma

Marketing

WPP taps Organon chief communications officer Wendy Lund for new health and wellness client role

Beth Snyder Bulik

Senior Editor

Wendy Lund is going home – to WPP, that is. Lund is leaving the Merck women’s health spinoff Organon where she is chief communications officer for a newly created role as WPP chief client officer for health and wellness. Before Organon, Lund led GCI Group, a WPP healthcare communications agency, as CEO for 11 years.

Lund joins WPP’s group of global client leaders who act as a single point of contact or entry for clients with WPP brands and businesses inside the holding company. and in this case, for the WPP health and wellness business.

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Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar

September 23, 2022 01:17 PM EDT

Pharma

Law

Should SCOTUS hear Amgen's Repatha case? Solicitor general says no

Nicole DeFeudis

Editor

Back in April, Amgen said it was encouraged by the solicitor general’s anticipated review of its Supreme Court petition to rehear a Repatha patent case. They’re likely much less optimistic about the outcome now.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a recent 27-page brief that Amgen’s arguments “lack merit and further review is not warranted.”

The case traces back to a suit filed in 2014 against Sanofi and Regeneron’s Praluent, which ended up beating Amgen’s PCSK9 blockbuster Repatha to market by a month just a year later.

Phil Sharp, Nobel Prize laureate (L), and John Carroll, Endpoints News co-CEO (via Michael Last)

September 23, 2022 12:44 PM EDTUpdated 4 hours ago

The Endpoints 11: Fireside chat with Nobel Prize laureate Phil Sharp

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

On Thursday evening in Boston I had the great good fortune to talk about the creation of the biotech industry with Nobel Prize-winning scientist Phil Sharp. I learned quite a bit about the early days of Genentech, Biogen and Alnylam, which all helped birth this unusual drug development ecosystem. And that’s why we can do things like the Endpoints 11. Here’s my talk with Phil Sharp, which you can either watch or read below.

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Head of Quality Systems

Lonza

Lexington, MA, USA

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September 23, 2022 11:07 AM EDTUpdated 01:04 PM

Pharma

Marketing

Klick Health gathers biotech and pharma luminaries to discuss industry innovations, investments and future

Beth Snyder Bulik

Senior Editor

At Klick Health’s first Ideas Exchange conference with biotech and pharma industry insiders since before the pandemic began, it was no surprise many conversations included Covid topics. Yet while vaccines and treatments were discussed, so too were the effects on drug development, federal responses, health inequities — and what to do now and next.

George Yancopoulos, chief scientist and cofounder of Regeneron, opened the conference responding to a question from Acorda CEO Ron Cohen about the spotlight on the industry during Covid and some of the “flak” biopharma has taken in the past.

September 23, 2022 09:58 AM EDTUpdated 01:23 PM

Pharma

FDA+

FDA's outside experts vote in favor of Ferring's fecal transplant for C. difficile, setting the stage for Seres

Kyle LaHucik

Associate Editor

FDA’s outside advisors voted in favor of Ferring Pharmaceuticals’ RBX2660, an experimental poop-based drug implant that the company says would be the first microbiota-based live biotherapeutic to receive an FDA green light.

That was a point repeatedly discussed during the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBPAC, meeting Thursday when evaluating Ferring’s fecal microbiota transplant, or FMT, for reducing the recurrence of Clostridioides difficile infection in adults who have received antibiotics. Multiple members brought up the need for a regulated product amid a landscape of unregulated FMTs already happening in clinical care.

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