Top of the morning to you, and a fine one it is. Although gray skies are hovering over the Pharmalot campus, our spirits remain sunny because, as the Morning Mayor taught us, “Every brand new day should be unwrapped like a precious gift.” And so, we are foraging for interesting stories and quaffing cups of stimulation, as you might have guessed. Our choice today is salted caramel mocha. And you? Is your schedule filled with meetings and deadlines and what-not? To help you along, here are some tidbits. Hope you conquer the world, and do keep us in mind when you see something fascinating. …
Pharmaceutical executives are ready to make deals, The Wall Street Journal says. Executives at Pfizer, Merck, and Novartis are looking for promising drugs to add to their pipelines and replenish sales as top-selling products lose patent protection in the coming years. Meanwhile, AbbVie is lifting a self-imposed $2 billion limit on the size of deals it would do to add more products. The acquisitions could help the companies add new sales to aging line-ups and suggest this year could be a busy one for industry dealmaking. The $88 billion in total deal value last year, involving 75 biopharma tie-ups of at least $100 million, was the lowest since 2017, according to Ernst & Young.
A new class of treatments for combating Covid-19 variants could help restock the country’s armory against the coronavirus, but faces an uncertain road to the commercial market, The New York Times tells us. A study found that a single injection of an interferon drug slashed by half patient odds of being hospitalized, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration late last year told the manufacturer, Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, it was not prepared to authorize it for emergency use. Eiger executives said part of the problem seemed to be the clinical trial did not include an American site, but rather only sites in Brazil and Canada, and that it was initiated and run by academic researchers, rather than the company.
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