Hailing it as a win-win and a historic step forward in fighting chronic disease, the Trump administration today announced agreements with Eli Lilly and Co. and Novo Nordisk A/S that will expand the availability of the companies’ obesity drugs by cutting prices and, for the first time, providing coverage for the drugs through Medicare and Medicaid. The lower prices and $50/month Medicare copay will democratize the drugs, CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said. While the deals include most-favored nation (MFN) pricing for the companies’ other drugs, the announcement focused on Lilly’s and Novo’s GLP-1 franchises, which now account for the highest annual drug expenditures in the U.S., President Donald Trump said in an Oval Office event abruptly cut short when one of the people standing behind him suddenly collapsed to the floor.

Lilly's amylin drug heads to phase III on strong weight loss data

Eli Lilly and Co.’s amylin receptor agonist, eloralintide, showed impressive weight loss and improved tolerability in phase II results reported at ObesityWeek 2025, setting the stage for a phase III trial to start next month. The once-weekly drug demonstrated superior mean weight reductions from 9.5% to 20.1% vs. only 0.4% for placebo, with all treatment arms meeting the primary endpoint. Two other amylin drugs from competitor Novo Nordisk A/S, cagrilintide and amycretin (dual GLP-1/amylin), are also set to enter phase III, as the race for second-generation obesity treatments heats up. At an earlier stage of development are amylins from Zealand Pharma A/S, Abbvie Inc., and Metsera Inc. – the latter of which is currently the subject of a contentious acquisition bidding war between Novo and Pfizer Inc. Analysts expect the obesity market to be worth well over $100 billion by 2032.

Advancell sets new radiopharma standard in prostate cancer

Aussie radiopharma company Advancell Co. Ltd. unveiled promising early clinical data that could redefine how advanced prostate cancer is treated by targeted alpha therapies in the radiopharmaceutical space. The company released results from the TheraPb phase Ib dose-escalation study of 212Pb-ADVC-001, a lead-212-based, prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted alpha radioligand for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), and Advancell CEO Andrew Adamovich told BioWorld that the early results exceeded expectations.

IPOs not entirely kaput; Evommune prices for $150M

Evommune Inc. priced its IPO of about 9.3 million shares at $16 each, granting underwriters a 30-day option to buy as many as about 1.4 million more. Proceeds are expected to total $150 million, with shares of the firm due to begin trading today on the New York exchange under the ticker EVMN. Morgan Stanley, Leerink Partners, Evercore ISI and Cantor are acting as joint book-running managers. The company’s lead compound is EVO-756, the mas-related G-protein coupled receptor X2-targeting candidate in the works for a handful of indications. In September, phase II data showed EVO-756 yielded clinical responses in 93% of chronic inducible urticaria patients at four weeks.

Newco news: Azalea exits stealth to develop its in vivo gene engineering technology

San Francisco Bay Area researchers from UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco and Stanford University have combined their technologies to create Azalea Therapeutics Inc., a company focused on editing cells in vivo. The platform is designed to insert whole genes into specific sites in the genome using what the company has termed Enveloped Delivery Vehicles that deliver Cas9 proteins and guide RNAs to make a cut at a specific site in the genome and an adeno-associated virus that provides a template for homologous DNA repair of the cut, which results in the insertion of a gene into the genome. Initially, Azalea plans to focus on creating CAR T cells for oncology and autoimmune diseases before expanding into other areas, such as monogenic genetic disorders. The company has raised $82 million in funding so far, including a recently closed $65 million series A financing.

With transdiagnostic approach, smaller target groups aren’t inevitably smaller markets

Despite the formidable challenges for developing precision psychiatry, the approach is notching its first successes in the preclinical and even some clinical settings. Many individual studies as well as large projects like the Psychiatric Ratings using Intermediate Markers (PRISM) studies and the Psychiatric Biomarkers Network (PBN) have been looking at multiple biomarker types, and have begun to identify predictors of specific symptoms, or disease progression.

Also in the news

Ailux, Aktis, Atai, Aveo, Averoa, Beckley, Biohaven, Braveheart, Calico, Centessa, Eli Lilly, Evotec, Forcast, Harmony, Hemostemix, Hengrui, Hibercell, Illuminare, Kailera, Kailera, Karo, Kodiak, Kwangdong, Leukogene, Marker, Metavia, Moberg, Moonlake, Myogene, NEC, Nona, Novo Nordisk, Polyactiva, Raresight, Rize, Sandoz, Santhera, Spyre, Strand, Taran, Tenpoint, Transgene, Turn, Umoja, Vaxcyte, Xtalpi, Zhaoke