Chief medical officer Samit Hirawat outlines R&D successes – though there have been some setbacks since it bought Celgene for $74bn last year – and the company’s commitment to clinical trial diversity.

Private Company Edition: Also, Medicxi’s new €200m fund will be reinvested in a portfolio of six life science companies and Silverback more than doubled its 2020 money with an $85m series C round.

In last year’s acquisition, Bristol Myers Squibb agreed to pay Celgene investors another $9 per share based on three approvals, including idecabtagene vicleucel (bb2121) by 30 March 2021.

Newly published data and results presented at ESMO for Amgen’s sotorasib (AMG 510) show relatively long-lasting responses and progression-free survival in lung cancer. 

ES: Public Company Edition: Fifty biopharma companies launched initial public offerings in the US last year and there have been 52 so far in 2020, including Metacrine, Dyne, Athira and COMPASS.

When the US FDA approved Olumiant (baricitinib) for RA, it insisted on a lower dose because of fears of blood clots. Now that an NIH trial has shown that the product plus Gilead’s Veklury (remdesivir) provided a statistically significant reduction in time to recovery versus remdesivir alone for hospitalized COVID patients, Olumaint may get an emergency use authorization from FDA to treat a condition that itself causes blood clots. That doesn't mean the black box is going away; it's just a reminder that there is as much magic and mystery to medicine sometimes as there is science.