More foreign pharma firms, this time Sanofi and GSK, are reorganizing sales and marketing efforts accompanied by layoffs in India. Scrip talks to experts about what’s driving the right-sizing and the wider trend.

Transactions involving Biocon/Zentiva, CrystalGenomics/PanGen, Umoja/IASO, Marinus/Tenacia, Ono/Captor and Daewoong/HitGen plus deals in brief.

Eyestem founder and CEO talks to Scrip about progress made by the firm’s experimental treatment for dry age-related macular degeneration, cell and gene therapy pricing considerations and the wider competitive landscape. The company is also developing treatments for retinitis pigmentosa and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

Syngene’s COO, Mahesh Bhalgat, said the firm is better placed than some peers to serve clients for biologics-based advanced therapies and address the cost element for new modalities like mRNA. He also outlines the research, development and manufacturing services company's capabilities in oligonucleotide-based therapeutics, an area that's seeing growing interest.

Glenmark’s innovation subsidiary, Ichnos, highlights encouraging early data for lead bispecific antibody assets and hopes to accelerate these via licensing and partnership deals.The US-based arm also points to the tough biopharma financing market where investors are no longer satisfied with just the “preclinical story”.

Biocon, which is set to close its deal with Viatris shortly, says it is in a “very good position” to vie for a share of the adalimumab biosimilar pie in the US and has had encouraging preliminary discussions with payers.