Ru­mors of bad news can flick­er around the BioTwit­ter world in a heart­beat. And the im­pact can be dev­as­tat­ing.

On Tues­day the tar­get was In­tra-Cel­lu­lar Ther­a­pies $IT­CI, and the ru­mor was pegged to an up­date on the FDA’s web­page that not­ed the agency was can­cel­ing the Psy­chophar­ma­co­log­ic Drugs Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee meet­ing for Ju­ly 31 and the re­view planned for the biotech’s schiz­o­phre­nia drug, lu­mate­per­one to­sy­late cap­sules.

For the le­gions of in­vestors look­ing for some­thing, any­thing, on the in­ter­net to bet on with what might be an in­side clue to a cat­a­lyst, it was pure gold. Had reg­u­la­tors al­ready de­cid­ed against the drug? What could it mean? It had to be bad, right?

Dis­as­ter!

The com­pa­ny’s stock was shred­ded, drop­ping more than 30% on the spec­u­la­tion. More than $150 mil­lion in mar­ket cap was gone in a snap as word of the move spread.

Then, af­ter the mar­ket closed, In­tra-Cel­lu­lar tried to staunch the flow of red. The biotech put out a state­ment say­ing that they had sup­plied ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion on their drug that the agency want­ed ex­tra time to study — hence the de­ci­sion to strike the ad­comm.

The FDA can­celled the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee meet­ing to al­low suf­fi­cient time to re­view this new and any forth­com­ing in­for­ma­tion as they con­tin­ue the NDA re­view.  This in­for­ma­tion may re­sult in an ex­ten­sion of the Sep­tem­ber 27, 2019 Pre­scrip­tion Drug User Fee Act (PDU­FA) tar­get ac­tion date for the lu­mate­per­one NDA.

That was good for a 9% re­bound af­ter the bell on Tues­day.

David Livingston, the Dana-Farber/Harvard Med scientist who helped shine a light on some of the key molecular drivers of breast and ovarian cancer, died unexpectedly last Sunday.

One of the senior leaders at Dana-Farber during his nearly half century of work there, Livingston was credited with shedding light on the genes that regulate cell growth, with insights into inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations that helped lay the scientific foundation for targeted therapies and earlier detection that have transformed the field.

Three Senate Democrats are backing an FDA plan to require mandatory prescriber education for opioids as overdose deaths have risen sharply over the past decade, with almost 97,000 American opioid-related overdose deaths in the past year alone.

While acknowledging a decline in overall opioid analgesic dispensing in recent years, the FDA said it’s reconsidering the need for mandatory prescriber training through a REMS given the current situation with overdoses, and is seeking input on the aspects of the opioid crisis that mandatory training could potentially mitigate.

Just as Avoro Capital’s campaign to derail Merck’s proposed $11.5 billion buyout of Acceleron gains steam, Bristol Myers Squibb is leaning in with some hefty counterweight.

The pharma giant is planning to tender its Acceleron shares, Bloomberg reported, which add up to a sizable 11.5% stake. Based on the offer price, the sale would net Bristol Myers around $1.3 billion.

To complete its deal, Merck needs a majority of shareholders to agree to sell their shares.

The FDA late Wednesday signed off on authorizing the use of heterologous — or what FDA calls a “mix and match” of a primary vaccine series and different booster doses — for all currently available Covid-19 vaccines, in addition to separately authorizing Moderna and J&J boosters.

On the mix-and-match approach, which FDA officials insisted isn’t too confusing in a press conference, the agency offered the example of an 18-year-old who received the J&J shot at least two months ago and may now receive a single booster of the J&J, a half dose of the Moderna, or the Pfizer-BioNTech booster.