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Oncology M&A: J&J buys Firefly to enter degrader antibody conjugates
Johnson & Johnson agreed to acquire Firefly Bio for $1 billion in cash, aiming to expand its oncology pipeline with degrader-antibody conjugates (DACs). The deal gives J&J access to Firefly’s...
Hematology M&A: Incyte buys Vega Therapeutics for late-stage VWD candidate
Incyte agreed to buy Vega Therapeutics for $1.25 billion upfront, adding Vega’s Phase 3 monoclonal antibody VGA-039 as a potential new growth driver in von Willebrand disease (VWD). The deal...
Diagnostics scale-up: CRUK partners to expand ctDNA testing via Guardant360
Cancer Research UK is partnering with the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and Guardant Health to make circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing freely available to hundreds of patients with...
Rapid pancreatic cancer detection: Biocartis and City of Hope explore Idylla blood test
Biocartis and City of Hope announced a partnership to develop a rapid, sample-to-answer blood test for early pancreatic cancer detection, using Biocartis’ Idylla technology platform. Financial...
Company going public: Treeline merges with Standard BioTools to list on Nasdaq
Treeline Biosciences plans to debut on public markets through a reverse merger with Standard BioTools, combining the two companies into Treeline Biosciences under the Nasdaq ticker TRLN. The...
RNAi financing: City Therapeutics raises $99.5M Series B to expand clinical pipeline
City Therapeutics, an RNA interference (RNAi) startup founded by former Alnylam executives, completed a $99.5 million Series B financing to advance multiple RNAi candidates. The company said the...
New IND clearance: Amphista advances BRD9 degrader AMX-883 into AML trial
Amphista Therapeutics received FDA IND clearance for AMX-883, an orally bioavailable BRD9 degrader, for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The company said a Phase 1 trial for patients...
Pivotal biomarkers: 14-protein blood signature predicts lung cancer risk years ahead
Researchers identified a 14-protein blood signature that can predict lung cancer risk up to five years before diagnosis. The work, published in Cell, was a collaboration between the Francis Crick...
Clinical-grade cell therapies: Moderna mRNA-4194 cleared for Lynch syndrome trial in the UK
Moderna and the University of Oxford said the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) authorized a Phase I/II study of mRNA-4194, Moderna’s mRNA-based cancer vaccine for...
Mega-deals reshape oncology and protein-degrader strategy
Johnson & Johnson moved deeper into KRAS-directed cancer space, agreeing to buy Firefly Bio for $1 billion in cash. The acquisition gives J&J access to Firefly’s degrader-antibody conjugate (DAC)...
AstraZeneca’s oral GLP-1 accelerates obesity competition
AstraZeneca is pressing into the oral obesity market with elecoglipron, positioning for later-stage studies after two Phase 2 readouts presented at the ADA meeting. The company is aiming to secure...
Clinical and regulatory momentum in precision diagnostics and MRD
Personalis secured CE-IVD marking for its EDTA and cfDNA blood collection kits in Europe under the EU IVDR framework. The kits are intended to standardize the pre-analytical phase for NeXT...
Incyte and other firms expand through precision hematology acquisitions
Incyte’s Vega deal is the latest in a series of late-stage strategy moves aimed at extending its hematology platform beyond near-term patent cliffs. VGA-039 is in Phase III development for von...
Precision oncology imaging and single-cell pharmacobiology
A new Nature Biotechnology approach, single-cell spatial pharmacobiology (SSP), mapped how systemically infused therapeutic antibodies behave inside patient tumors at single-cell resolution....
City Therapeutics raises for RNAi clinic expansion
City Therapeutics collected $99.5 million to advance clinical development for its first three RNAi candidates and extend the platform to targets beyond the liver. The fundraising comes as...
Regulatory access for gene sequencing specimens and trial scaling
Recent CE-IVD and coverage steps for specimen handling and MRD testing reflect an industry push to reduce operational friction in oncology trials. Personalis’ CE-IVD marking for blood collection...
Big data for AI-driven genomics consortium
Google DeepMind and the Wellcome Sanger Institute launched an AI genomics consortium aimed at building large genomic datasets for training predictive biology models. Google.org and Google DeepMind...
AstraZeneca’s obesity pill data and discontinuation optics
Boehringer Ingelheim’s survodutide continued to draw scrutiny in obesity as Phase 3 updates were presented around tolerability, including discontinuation rates. ADA26 coverage pointed to patient...
FDA and trade policy uncertainty for pharma manufacturing inputs
A new U.S. Federal Register notice outlined how manufacturers can apply for company-specific “onshoring agreements” to reduce Section 232 pharmaceutical tariff burdens, but key eligibility...
GSK’s Nuvalent buyout targets FDA decisions for two lung cancer drugs
GSK agreed to acquire Nuvalent for $10.6 billion, buying two experimental lung cancer therapies that are under FDA review with decision timelines later this year. The deal underscores how Big...