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Stock Watch: Cancer Combination Therapies Face Rising Bar

Additive Improvements Are Getting Harder To Demonstrate

 
• By Andy Smith

Improving efficacy by combining drugs has been a mainstay of cancer therapy but adding new targeted drugs together based on very early-stage data is not working out, especially when one of the drugs is barely active on its own.

Andy Smith
ANDY SMITH OFFERS A LIFE SCIENCE INVESTOR'S PERSPECTIVE ON BIOPHARMA BUSINESS

In better times for biotechnology companies, the release of abstracts of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting would provide more positive than negative stock price reactions. But a press release and then an abstract drop ahead of ASCO dashed investors’ expectations for one small biotech company and provided warnings on wider issues for much bigger ones.

SpringWorks Therapeutics Inc.’s management was probably hoping to ride the combination one-two punch of a press release on its...

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Stock Watch: Syncona’s Wild Ride Exposes Suspect Strategies

 
• By Andy Smith

A track record of positive portfolio performance is described as an investment management skill. Taking difficult divestment decisions early, in challenging markets and outperforming benchmarks, are hallmarks of this skill. Syncona and Woodford Patient Capital offer useful case studies.

Stock Watch: When The Biotech Bandwagon Music Stops

 
• By Andy Smith

The number of viable biotech companies exploiting a particular technology should be limited by intellectual property but the number of biotech IPOs exploiting that same technology always seems greater than those with freedom to operate.

Stock Watch: Generics Firms Trapped Between US Tariffs And European Austerity

 
• By Andy Smith

Successive annual reductions in European drug prices following the pandemic are affecting the global sales of generic pharmaceutical companies. Additionally, the imposition of US import tariffs may result in generic drug supply becoming unprofitable.

Stock Watch: On Q1 Vaccine Sales And Measles Outbreaks

 
• By Andy Smith

A recent study suggested that measles could become endemic in the US due to low vaccination rates. However, first-quarter vaccine sales offered a more nuanced picture.

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Novartis’s Cosentyx Suffers Rare Phase III Fail

 
• By Kevin Grogan

Multi-blockbuster falls short in a giant cell arteritis study.

In Brief: BioVersys And Shionogi Align In Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria R&D

 
• By Joseph Haas

Deal Snapshot: Having recently raised an $89m IPO, BioVersys is partnering on and optioning rights to a preclinical NTM development program with Shionogi.

BerGenBio Plumps For Oncoinvent From Long List Of 50 Suitors

 
• By Kevin Grogan

The merger with a fellow Norwegian biotech comes a few months after its lead asset, bemcentinib, bit the dust.