The first few years of Pas­cal So­ri­ot’s reign as CEO of As­traZeneca were tough to watch, at times. Set­backs were more com­mon than break­throughs, and its in­abil­i­ty to fin­ish its new head­quar­ters build­ing in Cam­bridge, UK, seemed em­blem­at­ic of its in­ner con­fu­sion. True, So­ri­ot had in­her­it­ed the worst pipeline in Big Phar­ma, but in­vestors fret­ted for some time when the com­pa­ny would get back on track.

Pas­cal So­ri­ot As­traZeneca

Through it all, the com­pa­ny steadi­ly built up key on­col­o­gy fran­chis­es, brought in Mer­ck as a ma­jor part­ner and nar­rowed its pipeline to fo­cus on bet­ter prospects. And So­ri­ot achieved his long­stand­ing promise to re­place steadi­ly dwin­dling rev­enues with a growth pic­ture.

Close to 2 years ago So­ri­ot re­cruit­ed José Basel­ga to run the on­col­o­gy side of the busi­ness while Mene Pan­ga­los steered the rest. And since the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion there have been high pro­file deals, new ap­provals and a repo­si­tion­ing for the drugs of the fu­ture.

To­mor­row I’ll be talk­ing with Basel­ga about the fu­ture of on­col­o­gy R&D at As­traZeneca at our 3rd an­nu­al UK bio­phar­ma sum­mit, co-host­ed by Nooman Haque at Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank. What are the com­bi­na­tions Basel­ga’s most in­trigued by? How did the Dai­ichi-Sankyo deals get done, and what do they tell us about the next round of pacts? And much more.

This year, be­cause we’re on Zoom, I’m look­ing for a more glob­al au­di­ence to check out this show­case on the Gold­en Tri­an­gle.

You’ll al­so have a chance to hear from Eliot Forster, Bahi­ja Jal­lal, John Bea­dle, Chris Mar­tin and Adri­an Raw­cliffe about UK R&D in a time of Covid-19, with some in­sid­er per­spec­tives on how this has been play­ing out from a transat­lantic per­spec­tive and where we go from here.

And Nooman will fol­low up with a look at how more in­creas­ing­ly porous in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial mar­kets have ben­e­fit­ed biotech in the UK, Eu­rope and be­yond. His guests: Anat Naschitz, Bri­an Sil­ver, Katie El­lias, Gra­ham Walm­s­ley and Stephanie Léouzon.

Please join us to­mor­row for the full slate, or choose any par­tic­u­lar part you’d like to tune in on. We’ll have time for ques­tions from the au­di­ence dur­ing each event. You can see the full sched­ule right here. I hope to see you there.

Indian-based generics manufacturer Aurobindo Pharma has been in the crosshairs of the FDA for several years now, but the company is also attracting attention from regulators within the subcontinent.

According to the Indian business news site Business Standard, a warning letter was sent to the company from the Securities Exchange Board of India, or SEBI.

The letter is related to disclosures made by the company on an ongoing FDA audit of the company’s Unit-1 API facility in Hyderabad, India as well as observations made by the US regulator between 2019 and 2022.

While Massachusetts-based Charles River Laboratories has been on an acquisition spree, they are not against planting their flag. The latest move by the company sees them crossing the pond to establish a manufacturing site in the UK.

The company on Tuesday opened its cell and gene therapy manufacturing center at Bruntwood SciTech’s Alderley Park in Cheshire, United Kingdom. The expansion follows Charles River’s acquisition of Cognate BioServices and Cobra Biologics in 2021 for $875 million. Cognate is a plasmid DNA, viral vector and cell therapy CDMO.

Following some backlash from the American College of Cardiology and patients, Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer lowered the price of their blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis, thus ensuring that CVS Caremark would cover the drug after 6 months of it being off the major PBM’s formulary.

“Because we secured lower net costs for patients from negotiations with the drug manufacturer, Eliquis will be added back to our template formularies for the commercial segment effective July 1, 2022, and patient choices will be expanded,” CVS Health said in an emailed statement. “Anti-coagulant therapies are among the non-specialty products where we are seeing the fastest cost increases from drug manufacturers and we will continue to push back on unwarranted price increases.”