Pharma & Biotech Daily: Settlements, Acquisitions, and Breakthroughs in the Industry

Pharma and BioTech Daily

Good morning from Pharma and Biotech daily: the podcast that gives you only what's important to hear in Pharma e Biotech world.Drug distributors McKesson, Cencora, and Cardinal have agreed to a $300 million settlement for their role in the opioid epidemic, adding to the billions they have already agreed to pay. Prime Healthcare has named Sunny Bhatia as their first national president, who will oversee all regions and lead the acquisition of Ascension hospitals in Illinois. Rite Aid has successfully exited bankruptcy, shedding $2 billion in debt after closing hundreds of stores. A data breach at an Idaho-based health system may have exposed data from over 464,000 patients, employees, and their dependents. Effective communication is highlighted as crucial in healthcare, impacting patient care.Eli Lilly has entered into a potential $1 billion drug discovery deal with Haya Therapeutics to target obesity and metabolic conditions using Haya's proprietary RNA-guided genome platform. Roche's fenebrutinib has shown positive results in a Phase II trial for relapsing multiple sclerosis. ArsenalBio has secured a $325 million Series C round with backing from Nvidia and Regeneron to advance its solid tumor cell therapy candidates. Roche and Regeneron are competing in the lucrative eye disease market, with analysts projecting their therapies to generate over $13 billion by 2030. Additionally, Lilly and Pfizer are increasing direct-to-consumer marketing efforts.Smaller biotechs have advantages over big pharma in developing new drugs, with a higher success rate in creating first-in-class medications. Vaxcyte, a mid-sized vaccine maker, has shown promising results with a new pneumococcal shot that could rival Pfizer's Prevner franchise. The vaccine was found to be non-inferior to Pfizer's product and immunizes against more types of the virus. This success highlights the impact smaller vaccine makers can have on the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies must navigate market strategies carefully to turn new drugs into successful assets even after FDA approval.