Biopharma is in for a transformational year in 2016. Lawmakers are clamoring for drug price reform. Patients are protesting for faster FDA approvals. Patents are under fire from value-seeking hedge funders. And the industry’s least-welcome spokesman is live-streaming the whole thing.
This year, some of the fundamental pillars of the industry suddenly seem vulnerable. The rise of biosimilars is poised to cut into pharma’s cash reserves, while the once-reliable demand for biotech IPOs has all but dried up. What makes a drug approvable is the subject of a newly heated debate, while the financial wizardry that once made drug companies a sure bet has come under intense scrutiny.
We’ve put together a list of the people in and around biopharma who are poised to play major roles in the industry’s evolution. Some are recent hires hoping to rescue moribund giants, while others are long-tenured veterans trying to steer their firms into brighter futures.
Each is facing a make-or-break 2016 with wide implications for the drug business as a whole.
> Read the full report on the Fierce Biotech website
By Damian Garde
Source: Fierce Biotech
A monkeypox outbreak is emerging in the U.S. and Europe, and at least one country is amping up countermeasure preparedness. Bavarian Nordic has secured a contract with an unnamed European country to supply its smallpox vaccine, called Imvanex in Europe, in response to the emergence of monkeypox cases, the Danish company said Thursday.
Moderna’s recent chief financial officer debacle—in which Jorge Gomez departed on his second day on the job—raised questions about the company’s hiring process given its rush to global biopharma prominence. The most obvious one: How was it possible for Gomez to be hired when he was under investigation by his previous employer, Dentsply Sirona of Charlotte, N.C.
Merck & Co. is plucking a cancer project from the branch of Chinese-based Kelun Pharmaceutical for up to $1.4 billion, but details from the New Jersey-based Big Pharma have been hard to come by. The deal, first disclosed Monday on the Shenzhen stock exchange, has Merck handing over $47 million in upfront cash in exchange for ex-China rights to a “macromolecular tumor project.”
