Trex Bio Inc., which kicked off 2022 with a big pharma partnership, is back at it again, starting the new year with a potential $1.1 billion agreement with original backer Eli Lilly and Co. targeting immune-mediated diseases. Under the terms, Trexbio gets $55 million up front, with Lilly picking up an exclusive worldwide license for candidates from three programs.

After shelving it for the past decade, the EU Parliament this week adopted a directive forcing large publicly listed companies to break the glass ceilings that have allowed a men-only mentality to thrive in corporate boardrooms across much of Europe. The so-called Women on Boards Directive, formally adopted Nov. 22, will require EU-based public companies to have women in at least 40% of their nonexecutive director posts or 33% of all director posts by the end of June 2026. Companies with fewer than 250 employees will be exempt.

After shelving it for the past decade, the EU Parliament this week adopted a directive forcing large publicly listed companies to break the glass ceilings that have allowed a men-only mentality to thrive in corporate boardrooms across much of Europe. The so-called Women on Boards Directive, formally adopted Nov. 22, will require EU-based public companies to have women in at least 40% of their nonexecutive director posts or 33% of all director posts by the end of June 2026. Companies with fewer than 250 employees will be exempt.

There is little doubt that progress in many brain diseases is being hampered because many, maybe most, diagnostic categories do not reflect underlying brain processes. In other disease areas, modern genetic and genomic methods have arrived in the form of approved drugs, from KRAS inhibitors in cancer to PCSK9 inhibitors to lower cholesterol. But brain diseases are different. Psychiatry is simultaneously the most personal area of medicine, and the least precise.

Another company has entered the fray in the eternal battle between humans and bacteria. Day Zero Diagnostics Inc. aims to produce whole genome sequencing-based diagnostic technologies that quickly identify the species and antibiotic resistance profile of bacterial pathogens from a blood sample. In a vote of confidence that the company is on the right track, the global non-profit Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) awarded Day Zero another $8.2 million. The latest funding pushes Day Zero’s awards from CARB-X over $16 million.

A vaccine for dengue fever, an advanced therapy for a complication after transplants, and a potential first-in-class drug for a form of psoriasis were among medicines recommended for approval by European regulators on Oct. 14. 

Even though the EU had approved more than a dozen biosimilars by 2012, the follow-on biologics were still in their embryonic stage around the world when BioWorld published The Biosimilars Game: A Scorecard for Opportunities, Threats and Critical Strategies in early 2013. Now, nearly a decade later, the global biosimilar landscape has matured with many more biosimilars approved across the globe, but the uptake, and thus the savings, is not what some policy makers and people in industry had hoped for or expected.

Long considered a make-or-break market for novel drugs and biologics and a success story for generics, the U.S. has been more challenging for biosimilars than many experts initially expected. U.S. biosimilar “uptake has been good, but not great,” Steven Lucio, senior principal for pharmacy solutions at Vizient Inc., told BioWorld. That could change next year when at least seven biosimilars referencing Abbvie Inc.’s immunosuppressive drug, Humira (adalimumab), are expected to launch in the U.S.

Surrozen Inc.’s back-end-loaded deal with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH for the preclinical frizzled class receptor 4 agonist SZN-413 takes aim at vascular function in retinal diseases. The arrangement brings an up-front payment to South San Francisco-based Surrozen of $12.5 million, plus up to $586.5 million in potential development, regulatory and commercial milestone rewards, along with mid-single-digit to low-double-digit royalties on sales. After an initial period of joint research, Boehringer, of Ingelheim, Germany, will take over development and commercial responsibilities.