Interviews

Emerging Company Profile: Privately held BioPlx is a US-based platform biotech that has successfully raised more than $10m from investors with the promise of developing non-antibiotic ways to control multiple-drug resistant superbugs and other infectious diseases.

After the presentation of stellar long-term survival data at ESMO for Kisqali in women with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer, Novartis is planning to knock Pfizer's Ibrance off its CDK4/6 inhibitor perch with the help of a head-to-head trial.

Private Company Edition: Recent biopharma venture capital financings add up to $1.7bn, including a $135m crossover round for HilleVax after spinning out of Takeda in July to advance a norovirus vaccine, Skyhawk’s $133m in fresh funding and Obsidian’s $115m series B round.

Novartis has filed the PD-1 inhibitor tislelizumab, licensed from BeiGene, for second-line esophageal cancer with the FDA, the first submission outside China for the closely-watched therapy.

Korean bioventure Genome & Co. is accelerating growth by acquiring US microbiome CDMO List Labs, following on from its purchase of US microbiome therapeutics firm Scioto last year. With its microbiome pipeline reaching milestones as planned, Genome appears on track for its goal of becoming a fully integrated global biopharma concern.

Miguel Forte, Bone Therapeutics CEO, has told Scrip that another approach from French company Hybrigenics about a merger came as a surprise, adding that his priority is the expansion of the Belgian biotech's allogenic cell therapy platform after the recent failure of its Phase III asset for knee osteoarthritis pain.

Emerging Company Profile: Monument Therapeutics’ novel approach to CNS drug development focuses on repurposing existing drugs with the aid of digital biomarkers.   

Emerging Company Profile: Scotland-based EnteroBiotix will use proceeds from a successful series A financing to advance its nascent pipeline of novel high-diversity microbial therapeutics, enhancing the gut microbiome and eventually targeting multiple indications.

Anandram Narasimhan, managing director of Merck Specialities Pvt. Ltd. in India, share insights on the uptick in the fertility business and the promise of new launches, including of the checkpoint inhibitor Bavencio, in the country. Overall, the “signs are good”, the executive tells Scrip in an interview.

Boehringer Ingelheim’s cardiometabolism head Mohamed Eid considers the impact of EMPEROR-Preserved study on the heart failure treatment landscape and looks ahead at potential new conquests in kidney disease for its SGLT2 inhibitor.

Anthos Therapeutics’ CEO and ex-head of global commercial operations at Novartis Pharma, John Glasspool, tells Scrip there’s no "automatic premise" that the large promotional launch model is broken. He also outlines how teleconsultation is taking medicine back to its roots and "where it can be" as well, with patients less likely to get white coat syndrome. 

The full dataset from the closely-watched study demonstrated that Jardiance showed a 21% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular death or hospitalization for HFpEF compared with placebo, a significantly greater benefit than seen with the only approved drug for the indication, Novartis's Entresto.