New Zymeworks CEO Ken Galbraith is laying off at least 25% of the company's staff, including 50% of the senior management team, as the firm looks to advance pivotal trials of its HER2-targeted bispecific antibody zanidatamab.

The 4 February entry deadline is looming for the inaugural Informa Pharma Intelligence Awards Japan, which will be held in Tokyo on 12 May 2022 to recognize and reward the very best innovations and achievements in pharma and biotech, highlighting Japan's integral role in the global healthcare market.

The Brussels-based company's head of immunology has told Scrip that going into a crowded market against several highly effective biologics across different classes holds no fears for UCB despite some concerns that US prescribers will stick to what they know when it comes to psoriasis therapies.

ImmPACT Bio is advancing three CAR-T technology platforms that aim to address problems such as antigen escape, off-target toxicities and the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. 

Oncolytic virus firm SillaJen, which hoped to get back on track and resume stock trading after it found a new owner last year, is set to be delisted from Korea’s Kosdaq market as the exchange makes a preliminary decision.

Alkermes tells J.P. Morgan audience it hopes new combo Lybalvi and established Aristada will boost each other and the neuropsychiatric franchise. But the firm noted its addiction drug Vivitrol requires complicated commercial plan.

The arrival on the US eczema market of a couple of oral JAK inhibitors with stellar data on itching could provide a challenge to Sanofi and Regeneron's blockbuster Dupixent. However, Pfizer and AbbVie will have to overcome dermatologists' fears about the class-effect safety warnings their drugs come with.

Scrip's Kevin Grogan joins Datamonitor's Pamela Spicer and Davinderpreet Mangat to discuss the skin disease landscape and whether atopic dermatitis is now where psoriasis was a decade ago as another wave of innovative products start to reach the market.

The draft national coverage determination, released shortly before Lilly CEO David Ricks spoke at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, said Medicare will cover anti-amyloid antibodies only for patients in clinical trials, severely limiting commercial potential for Biogen’s Aduhelm and near-term competitors.

Pipeline Watch is a weekly snapshot of selected late-stage clinical trial events and approvals announced by pharmaceutical and biotech companies at medical and industry conferences, in financial and company presentations, and in company releases and statements.

Pivotal data presented at the ASCO GI meeting in liver and biliary tract cancers could add a couple of billion dollars to Imfinzi’s sales and breathe new life into the CTL4 inhibitor tremelimumab.

Published data showed Merck’s PD-1 inhibitor combined with Eisai’s Lenvima improved survival in the all-comer population of previously treated endometrial carcinoma.