Mandy reports on daily biopharma developments, writes feature stories and produces Scrip's Finance Watch column. She covers finance, start-ups, dealmaking, clinical trial results, quarterly earnings reports, commercial competition and corporate strategy. Mandy regularly interviews everyone from big pharma CEOs to biotech start-up founders, enhancing her expertise on industry trends and market dynamics. She also is interested in drug pricing and novel reimbursement strategies, new treatments in areas of true unmet need, diversity in the biopharma industry and novel approaches to drug development. She has been a business reporter since 2000, covering biopharma, biotech law and commercial real estate.
Latest from Mandy Jackson
With new Phase I/Ib results in kidney cancer, the HIF-2a inhibitor outshines Merck’s Welireg, but longtime Arcus partner Gilead decided not to exercise its option for casdatifan.
Public Company Edition: Aardvark Therapeutics’ US IPO – the fifth of 2025 – will fund a Phase III trial in Prader-Willi syndrome and other studies. Also, Sarepta closed on a $600m revolving credit facility and Biogen entered into a funding agreement with Royalty Pharma for up to $250m.
CMO Tahamtan Ahmadi explained Genmab hopes to do a deal in 2025 like its ProfoundBio acquisition in 2024 as the company seeks to develop more antibodies entirely on its own.
Sales of spinal muscular atrophy drug Spinraza had an unexpected US boost in Q4 and Biogen may win US FDA approval for a high dose version this year, but Roche’s Evrysdi was just approved in a new tablet formulation.
Private Company Edition: Abcuro’s series C venture capital round will fund its lead drug through pivotal results, filing with the US FDA and launch preparations. Also, AdvanCell completed a $112m series C round, Lutris Pharma raised $30m and Imvax closed a $29m financing.
As Biogen’s MS revenue continues its multi-year decline, the slow return to growth raises concerns about the company’s pipeline – but CEO Christopher Viehbacher said all is on track.