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
Amgen, BMS, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech, Gilead Sciences, GSK, Merck & Co., Novartis and Sanofi will reduce prices of some drugs for Medicaid and offer reduced pricing through direct-to-patient platforms, among other concessions. In exchange, they will be exempted from tariffs.
Public Company Edition: Athira licensed Phase III lasofoxifene from Sermonix and raised $90m plus up to $146m from warrants. Also, Immunovant, Immunome and Kodiak grossed $550m, $400m and $160m respectively, in follow-on offerings. Vor garnered $150m in a private placement.
Private Company Edition: Three out of eight $100m-plus venture capital financings so far in December were raised by China-based biotech firms – $110m for SanegeneBio, $108m for D3 Bio and $100m for OTR – reflecting growing interest in drug candidates from the country.
The US FDA approved LIB Therapeutics’ Lerochol (lerodalcibep), a PCSK9-inhibiting protein therapeutic injected once-monthly that does not require refrigeration, for adults with high cholesterol, including those with HeFH.
Phase III results for gamma secretase inhibitor varegacestat in the treatment of desmoid tumors appear superior on both efficacy and safety to Merck KGaA’s Ogsiveo (nirogacestat).
The US FDA approved Uplizna (inebilizumab) for generalized myasthenia gravis, an increasingly crowded market. Amgen believes it can compete due to the CD19-targeting antibody’s durable efficacy with twice-yearly dosing.