My latest @opinion.bloomberg.com looks at the heartbreaking, harmful gutting of LGBTQ health-related research, which our analysis found was acutely targeted in the massive NIH cuts.

NEW: Google’s bet on AI in drug discovery just got a lot bigger. My latest with @kylelahucik.bsky.social on Isomorphic's $600 million round — the largest in biotech so far in 2025: endpts.com/isomorphic-l...

New: Peter Marks' ouster at the FDA has rattled biotech stocks and comes as the market was already wobbly. w/@drewsnews.bsky.social and @kylelahucik.bsky.social endpts.com/biotech-mark...

NEW: The NIH has begun terminating grants for active projects studying gender identity, DEI, environmental justice, climate change, among other topics. At least 16 termination letters have already been sent — and hundreds more are coming, people inside NIH tell me. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Kudos to the @endpts.com team for not running away from this issue like everyone else.

Scoop with @kylelahucik.bsky.social and @andrewedunn.bsky.social: Bay Area biotech VC Bioluminescence Ventures is closing 15 months after launching with almost $500M across two funds. endpts.com/bay-area-bio...

The PEPFAR program, which distributes HIV drugs, is estimated to have saved 25 million lives. The Trump administration has stopped it and taken its computer system offline, raising fears the program is done for good. Story by @apoorvanyt.bsky.social [Gift link] nyti.ms/4aCJHSx 2/12

A pre-JPM Friday firehose of news: Four biotechs emerge with $800M: endpts.com/four-biotech... Former top Moderna scientist's new startup: endpts.com/modernas-for... Obesity drug startup Metsera files IPO: endpts.com/obesity-drug... Biogen offers to buy partner Sage: endpts.com/biogen-offer...

The head of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research will be stepping down ahead of Trump's return A huge White Oak scoop from @zacharybrennan.bsky.social endpts.com/cder-directo...

AbbVie wrote off $3.5 billion on the schizophrenia treatment from its Cerevel buyout, after the drug failed two Phase 2 studies. The drug was expected to be a major competitor with Bristol Myers' Cobenfy endpts.com/abbvie-write...

In the week leading up to #JPM25, eight biotechs raised megarounds for a whopping total of $1.73 billion (likely heavily tranched) Four disclosed Friday Verdiva $411M Kardigan $300M Aviceda $207M Tenvie $200M Windward $200M Timberlyne $180M Ouro Medicines $120M Aspect Biosystems $115M @endpts.com

Would love to hear from more biopharma startup founders, first-time entrepreneurs, early-stage VCs and others in drug development about their thoughts on this. DM me or reach out at [email protected]

About 400 incarcerated people are fighting California's wildfires for a few dollars a day in payment. "The conditions in California prisons are so terrible that fighting wildfires is a rational choice,” Matthew Hahn, a former incarcerated firefighter, said. www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025...

fascinating read on naming viruses from @jasonmast.bsky.social “We have this joke,” he said. “When you go to a nice dinner, you shall not discuss sex, politics, religion and taxonomy.”

Following the likes of Kailera & Metsera last year, a new obesity biotech has emerged with clinical-stage assets. London & San Fran biotech Verdiva begins with $411 million, an oral GLP-1 set for Phase 2 this year and preclinical amylin prospects. The team mainly derives from GSK-acquired Aiolos

Maze Therapeutics opens the biotech IPO window (maybe) with a Tuesday night S-1 filing Follows a hectic 2024 for the Bay Area biotech: FTC hurdle, then a Shionogi deal to save its Pompe drug, offloading of an ALS drug candidate & finally a $115 million Series D during the holidays @endpts.com

Exclusive: Regeneron bought a London ocular biotech called Oxular, backed by Forbion and others Its delivery device could be used for Regeneron's "future ocular gene therapies, with the goal of accelerating the time it will take to reach clinical readiness," a spokesperson told @endpts.com

Biotech startups landed 96 megarounds ($100m+) in 2024, according to an @endpts.com tally, nearing a 2021 peak. I took a look behind the numbers and the 94 companies (Metsera and Seaport each did two rounds) that bagged the large financings

A new type of depression drug from Neumora has failed the first of three Phase 3 trials, marking a gloomy beginning to 2025 for the brain disease biotech Navacaprant performed almost the exact same as placebo on the primary endpoint. J&J is testing a similar type of KOR antagonist dubbed aticaprant

British slang is wild - "at the fag end of what has been a red-hot year for companies listing on the stock market." cigarette butt ... but maybe they shouldn't use that?

Opdivo gets the subQ (under the skin) approval from FDA Keytruda subQ is next on deck Bristol Myers Squibb exec told @endpts.com they expect ~30-40% of eligible patients will switch from IV version of the blockbuster cancer immunotherapy

“pharma bros” on today’s Connections 👀

BREAKING: Novo Nordisk's CagriSema fails to hit 25% weightloss benchmark in Phase 3 readout. Novo’s stock $NVO crashed by as much as 26% pre-market Friday. endpts.com/novo-reveals...

Tirzepatide shortage is over, says FDA. That means compounding pharmacies making lots of copies of brand-name Zepbound and Mounjaro have to stop soon. endpts.com/in-blow-to-c...

The 2024 winners and losers in the pharma world are in. Who's up and who's down? Do you agree? Let us know in the comments. endpts.com/endpoints-wi...

shortly after selling Seagen for $43B, David Epstein has collected $140M for his next bet he says Ottimo Pharma isn't just a me-too PD1xVEGF biotech. They're focused on bifunctionals instead “in today’s world, one of the things that’s changed is people make copies of things pretty darn quick"

Drugmakers including Purdue Pharma paid middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers to not restrict painkiller prescriptions, a New York Times investigation has found. nyti.ms/3BL5vOS

Ring Therapeutics ~halves workforce in second round of layoffs this year for the Flagship startup working on a new type of virus to delivery gene therapies w/@maxbayer.bsky.social for @endpts.com

BioAge inks collab w/Novartis’ DARe group (didn’t know that unit existed until this week) “We’re trying to learn from examples of successful aging where some people live a lot longer, a lot healthier than others do. We’re learning from a paradigm that already works,” said BioAge CEO Kristen Fortney

It's been really cool to see the accelerating migration to Bluesky. Check out our @endpts.com starter pack for editors / writers to follow. bsky.app/starter-pack...

Finally used the Chicago dateline for something other than ASCO Spoke w/local investors, startup executives, real estate leaders, Chan-Zuckerberg Chicago Biohub president and other industry insiders about the Windy City’s goal to become a biohub of its own

Health insurance industry PR is working overtime right now diverting blame to physicians for claim denials and rising costs. I feel compelled to remind everybody that Optum (UHC) is the largest employer of physicians in the US. We have never had less power in healthcare than we do right now.

Padlock shareholders sue Bristol Myers (BMS also faces pushback from Celgene investors) Biotech deals live & breathe by biobucks/milestone payments “The larger issue here is that the success of our whole industry is built on deals like this,” Padlock founder @gilman.bsky.social told @endpts.com

NEW: A look inside Isomorphic Labs, the startup trying to change how drugs are discovered with AI. I spent time with Iso CEO (and recent Nobel laureate) Demis Hassabis and other leaders in their London headquarters. Here's my exclusive feature on what they're up to: endpts.com/isomorphic-l...

come eat 🍨 with Max and me at JPM. good flavors only (pistachio and mint chocolate chip)

Welp, the news is out. It's a gutting day for us at STAT with layoffs of 11 treasured, hardworking colleagues. I can't say this loud enough: Please subscribe/support the journalism you trust. Science writing jobs are going extinct at a time when we're needed most. www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/09/b...

the comments on one of Luigi Mangione’s insta posts 😮

Scoop with @kylelahucik.bsky.social and @drewsnews.bsky.social: There's a changing of the guards atop a16z's health and biotech team. Vijay Pande is handing over the reins to Vineeta Agarwala as he prepares for a larger role involving AI in healthcare. endpts.com/vijay-pande-...

2 months after its big IPO, BioAge axed a Phase 2 of its oral drug + Zepbound following safety findings. Its stock cratered 70% The California startup began as an anti-aging biotech in '15. It then got an Amgen heart failure drug for $1M upfront & repositioned the small molecule for obesity

European Commission gives thumbs up to Novo Holdings' $16.5 billion acquisition of contract manufacturer Catalent FTC still reviewing Companies expect deal to close by New Year's Other pharma executives, like Lilly and Roche CEOs, have publicly voiced concerns about the deal's impact

San Francisco hotel workers want the 2025 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference to be canceled

Reporting live from Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin Lilly’s $3 billion expansion of manufacturing facility it bought for ~$925 million in the spring

UnitedHealth has confirmed the shooting and death of insurance group head Brian Thompson in Manhattan this morning. They've (obviously) canceled investor day. Completely shocking. endpts.com/ceo-of-unite...

Officially kicking off the 2025 Track & Field season today with a team info meeting (I coach a high school team) If you’re in biotech and are a runner yourself, please make that the subject of our small talk. I’ll have no energy to talk about anything else from late January until end of May

"Even as US & European pharma companies decouple other parts of their businesses — moving away from Chinese research & development providers & creating separate production facilities in China, for China — biotech deals are looking too attractive to pass up" good piece from @ambertongpw.bsky.social

New: Recordings from private autism conferences show Trump HHS pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vilifying & conspiracy theorizing about agencies he's set to lead. Videos show RFK Jr comparing CDC vaccine programs to "Nazi death camps" & calling for researchers to be jailed. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

FDA out with a pre-Thanksgiving update on investigation into bluebird’s Skysona gene therapy bluebird spokesperson tells @endpts.com that the agency’s update today was “not prompted by any new cases of malignancy or other safety updates.” A 7th case was reported in NEJM publication last month

We've updated our story after media and analyst calls. The gist: - data are good but didn't hit bull expectations - dosing Qs remain, especially in the obesity/overweight cohort w/o T2D - tolerability outside of the dose escalation arms is pretty unknown

Sarepta has a long and controversial history of getting its Duchenne drugs OK’d via accelerated approval. Now it will try in more rare diseases. "We will apply that same focus and creative energy and patient-mission approach to these therapies," CEO Doug Ingram said. endpts.com/sarepta-arro...

food allergy biotech Alladapt Immunotherapeutics has shut down, @endpts.com has learned "FDA guidance for the Phase 3 trial made it economically unviable," said a source familiar the startup was building a manufacturing facility near Philly and had disclosed a $119M funding round in '22