A day af­ter the House passed a bill that would pro­tect Amer­i­cans’ right to con­tra­cep­tives, biotech ex­ecs say they will keep fight­ing for bet­ter ac­cess to nov­el birth con­trol prod­ucts.

The big ques­tion now is whether the leg­is­la­tion will sur­vive the Sen­ate floor.

The House vot­ed 228-195 on Thurs­day to pass a law that would en­sure the right to ob­tain and pro­vide con­tra­cep­tives. It would al­so al­low pa­tients, providers and fed­er­al or state gov­ern­ments to bring civ­il suits against states or of­fi­cials that vi­o­late the law.

The move comes weeks af­ter the Supreme Court over­turned Roe v. Wade, and Jus­tice Clarence Thomas in­di­cat­ed in his opin­ion that the Court should re­con­sid­er oth­er prece­dents, in­clud­ing one 1965 de­ci­sion that as­sured the right to con­tra­cep­tives.

Eight Re­pub­li­can rep­re­sen­ta­tives joined De­moc­rats in sup­port of the con­tra­cep­tive bill, while some Sen­ate Re­pub­li­cans have in­di­cat­ed they’re on the fence. How­ev­er, there’s a chance the Sen­ate won’t vote un­til af­ter sum­mer re­cess, which be­gins Aug. 5.

Sab­ri­na John­son

“It’s ab­solute­ly an out­stand­ing step,” Daré Bio­science CEO Sab­ri­na John­son said on Fri­day of the House vote.

Her com­pa­ny’s vagi­nal ring, Ovaprene, is about to en­ter a Phase III tri­al this year. “I would love for it to pass in the Sen­ate, but I think re­al­is­ti­cal­ly, giv­en that there were on­ly eight Re­pub­li­cans that sup­port­ed it in the House, I think that it’s go­ing to be a heavy lift,” she added.

Rep. Ang­ie Craig (D-MN) spoke in sup­port of the bill on the House floor on Thurs­day, ar­gu­ing that “an ex­treme GOP, an ex­treme Supreme Court, they want to take away your free­dom and your con­trol over your own lives.”

“It is ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary that we take ac­tion to­day,” she said.

Some Re­pub­li­can sen­a­tors have in­di­cat­ed they’re lean­ing to­ward a yes vote, in­clud­ing Su­san Collins (R-ME) who told the Wash­ing­ton Post that she would “most like­ly” of­fer sup­port. Sen. Lisa Murkows­ki (R-AK) told the Post she was work­ing on bi­par­ti­san leg­is­la­tion to cod­i­fy abor­tion and per­haps con­tra­cep­tion rights.

Saun­dra Pel­leti­er

“What I’m pleased about is that we’re re­al­ly try­ing to be proac­tive, and we rec­og­nize that if we aren’t fierce about this — but I mean fierce — we’re go­ing to ac­tu­al­ly cre­ate im­pli­ca­tions for half of our pop­u­la­tion that are go­ing to be dire,” said Saun­dra Pel­leti­er, CEO of Evofem, which mar­kets a non-hor­mon­al con­tra­cep­tive gel called Phexxi.

“We have to get up, suit our­selves in our ar­mor, be­cause this was too easy to have things tak­en away,” she said of the Court’s de­ci­sion in Dobbs v. Jack­son Women’s Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

Be­fore the Supreme Court’s de­ci­sion, Evofem strug­gled to get cov­er­age for Phexxi. Now in­sur­ers are start­ing to lis­ten, Pel­leti­er said. Pay­ers cov­er 75% per­cent of prod­uct claims, up from 55% a year ago.

“We just all be­lieve in the same is­sues,” in­clud­ing mak­ing a broad range of con­tra­cep­tives avail­able and af­ford­able to women, said Ag­ile Ther­a­peu­tics CEO Al Al­tomari. Ag­ile mar­kets its birth con­trol patch Twirla as a low­er dose and more con­ve­nient op­tion for women. “We’re al­ready walk­ing the walk … We will con­tin­ue to fight.”

Sanofi expects its RSV antibody jointly developed with AstraZeneca will be available next season, executive VP of vaccines Thomas Triomphe announced on the company’s quarterly call.

Beyfortus, also known as nirsevimab, was approved in the EU back in November and is currently under FDA review with an expected decision coming in the third quarter of this year. The news comes as the FDA plans to hold advisory committee meetings over the next couple months to review RSV vaccines from Pfizer and GSK.

After a whopping $4 billion asset buy from Nimbus Therapeutics, along with a $400 million deal with Hutchmed for a colorectal cancer drug, Takeda executives touted pipeline optimism on its latest earnings call this week.

That’s because the TYK2 inhibitor for psoriasis Takeda is getting from Nimbus, along with the Hutchmed fruquintinib commercialization outside of China, are just two of what it reports are 10 late-stage development programs of promising candidates.

Regeneron faced a substantial slump in overall revenue last year, but the focus still remains on some of its biggest blockbusters.

The pharma with several high-profile partnerships — Sanofi and Bayer among them — said Friday that Q4 revenue was down 31% for the quarter, and down 24% for the entire year. However, that won’t stop blockbuster expansion plans.

One of those is Eylea, the Bayer-partnered eye disease drug that has been in major competition with Roche’s Vabysmo. While Eylea is currently only approved in a 2 mg dose, the company recently filed for approval to give a 8 mg dose, in hopes of making a longer-lasting treatment.

Following a promise last year to go “big and fast in breast cancer,” Gilead has secured a win for Trodelvy in the most common form.

The drug was approved to treat HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer patients who’ve already received endocrine-based therapy and at least two other systemic therapies for metastatic cancer, Gilead announced on Friday.

Trodelvy won its first indication in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer back in 2020, and has since added urothelial cancer to the list. HR-positive HER2-negative breast cancer accounts for roughly 70% of new breast cancer cases worldwide per year, according to senior VP of oncology clinical development Bill Grossman, and many patients develop resistance to endocrine-based therapies or worsen on chemotherapy.