Five days after regaining the helm at CureVac — and 1 day after controversy erupted — Ingmar Hoerr makes surprise exit

March 16, 2020 04:09 PM EDTUpdated March 17, 10:15 AM

Five days after regaining the helm at CureVac — and 1 day after controversy erupted — Ingmar Hoerr makes surprise exit

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Five days ago, CureVac founder and original CEO Ingmar Hoerr grabbed back the reins at the German biotech, later explaining to us that at that point, with a global coronavirus crisis underway, the company needed a scientist at the helm.

Yesterday, word got out that the Trump administration was trying to co-opt the mRNA tech that CureVac had pioneered, promising it could develop a new vaccine that could be quickly manufactured for millions of people. European authorities were livid at the idea of being squeezed out by the US government.

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Implementing resilience in the clinical trial supply chain

Nina Vas

Vice President, Clinical Distribution, Cell and Gene Supply Chain

Since January 2020, the clinical trials ecosystem has quickly evolved to manage roadblocks impeding clinical trial integrity, and patient care and safety amid a global pandemic. Closed borders, reduced air traffic and delayed or canceled flights disrupted global distribution, revealing how flexible logistics and supply chains can secure the timely delivery of clinical drug products and therapies to sites and patients.

Pascal Soriot (AP Images)

November 23, 2020 05:43 AM ESTUpdated 02:00 PM

Coronavirus

UPDATED: AstraZeneca, Oxford on the defensive as skeptics dismiss 70% average efficacy for Covid-19 vaccine

Amber Tong

Editor

On the third straight Monday that the world wakes up to positive vaccine news, AstraZeneca and Oxford are declaring a new Phase III milestone in the fight against the pandemic. Not everyone is convinced they will play a big part, though.

With an average efficacy of 70%, the headline number struck analysts as less impressive than the 95% and 94.5% protection that Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have boasted in the past two weeks, respectively. But the British partners say they have several other bright spots going for their candidate. One of the two dosing regimens tested in Phase III showed a better profile, bringing efficacy up to 90%; the adenovirus vector-based vaccine requires minimal refrigeration, which may mean easier distribution; and AstraZeneca has pledged to sell it at a fraction of the price that the other two vaccine developers are charging.

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Vas Narasimhan, Novartis CEO (Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

November 24, 2020 09:58 AM ESTUpdated 11:20 AM

R&D

Vas Narasimhan's 'Wild Card' drugs: Novartis CEO highlights potential jackpots, as well as late-stage stars, in R&D presentation

Max Gelman

Associate Editor

Novartis is always one of the industry’s biggest R&D spenders. As they often do toward the end of each year, company execs are highlighting the drugs they expect will most likely be winners in 2021.

And they’re also dreaming about some potential big-time lottery tickets.

As part of its annual investor presentation Tuesday, where the company allows investors and analysts to virtually schmooze with the bigwigs, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan will outline what he thinks are the pharma’s “Wild Cards.” The slate of five experimental drugs are those that Novartis hopes can be high-risk, high-reward entrants into the market over the next half-decade or so, and cover a wide range of indications.

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November 24, 2020 08:37 AM EST

Bioregnum

Regulatory

The aducanumab conundrum: The PhIII failed a clear regulatory standard, but no one is certain what that means anymore at the FDA

Eighteen days ago, virtually all of the outside experts on an FDA adcomm got together to mug the agency’s Billy Dunn and the Biogen team when they presented their upbeat assessment on aducanumab. But here we are, more than 2 weeks later, and the ongoing debate over that Alzheimer’s drug’s fate continues unabated.

Instead of simply ruling out any chance of an approval, the logical conclusion based on what we heard during that session, a series of questionable approvals that preceded the controversy over the agency’s recent EUA decisions has come back to haunt the FDA, where the power of precedent is leaving an opening some experts believe can still be exploited by the big biotech.

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John Maraganore, Alnylam CEO (Scott Eisen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

November 23, 2020 08:04 PM ESTUpdated 09:21 AM

Pharma

Regulatory

UPDATED: Alnylam gets the green light from the FDA for drug #3 — and CEO John Maraganore is ready to roll

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Score another early win at the FDA for Alnylam.

The FDA put out word today that the agency has approved its third drug, lumasiran, for primary hyperoxaluria type 1, better known as PH1. The news comes just 4 days after the European Commission took the lead in offering a green light.

An ultra rare genetic condition, Alnylam CEO John Maraganore says there are only some 1,000 to 1,700 patients in the US and Europe at any particular point. The patients, mostly kids, suffer from an overproduction of oxalate in the liver that spurs the development of kidney stones, right through to end stage kidney disease.

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Bob Nelsen (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images)

November 23, 2020 11:52 AM ESTUpdated 02:51 PM

Startups

Bob Nelsen raises $800M and recruits a star-studded board to build the 'Foxconn' of biotech

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

Bob Nelsen spent his pandemic spring in his Seattle home, talking on the phone with Luciana Borio, the scientist who used to run pandemic preparedness on the National Security Council, and fuming with her about the dire state of American manufacturing.

Companies were rushing to develop vaccines and antibodies for the new virus, but even if they succeeded, there was no immediate supply chain or infrastructure to mass-produce them in a way that could make a dent in the outbreak.

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Frank Zhang (AP Images)

November 23, 2020 09:40 AM EST

People

China

Plot thickens around Legend Biotech, GenScript with founder Frank Zhang's arrest

Amber Tong

Editor

Two months after Legend Biotech made the startling disclosure that founder and then-CEO Frank Zhang was placed under “residential surveillance,” its parent company revealed that he’s been formally arrested.

Zhang — who, since founding GenScript 18 years ago, has taken the CRO public and groomed Legend Biotech in-house until the J&J-partnered CAR-T player was mature enough for its own Nasdaq listing — is severing his final ties with both. He is resigning as board chair/non-executive director of GenScript and director of Legend.

Carl Hansen, AbCellera CEO (University of British Columbia)

November 23, 2020 08:39 AM EST

IPOs

From a pair of Air Jordans to a $200M-plus IPO, Carl Hansen is crafting an overnight R&D fortune fueled by Covid-19

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Back in the summer of 2019, Carl Hansen left his post as a professor at the University of British Columbia to go full time as the CEO at a low-profile antibody shop he had founded called AbCellera.

As biotech CEOs go, even after a fundraise Hansen wasn’t paid a whole heck of a lot. He ended up earning right at $250,000 for the year. His compensation package included a loan — which he later paid back — and a pair of Air Jordan tennis shoes. His newly-hired CFO, Andrew Booth, got a sweeter pay packet than that — which included his own pair of Air Jordans.

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November 23, 2020 07:27 AM EST

Deals

Coronavirus

In final days at Merck, Roger Perlmutter bets big on a little-known Covid-19 treatment

Jason Mast

Associate Editor

Roger Perlmutter is spending his last days at Merck, well, spending.

Two weeks after snapping up the antibody-drug conjugate biotech VelosBio for $2.75 billion, Merck announced today that it had purchased OncoImmune and its experimental Covid-19 drug for $425 million. The drug, known as CD24Fc, appeared to reduce the risk of respiratory failure or death in severe Covid-19 patients by 50% in a 203-person Phase III trial, OncoImmune said in September.

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