Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. will pay $11.75 billion cash to acquire Organon & Co. The transaction is expected to close in early 2027. The addition of Organon’s women’s health products, legacy drug brands and biosimilars are expected to boost Mumbai, India-based Sun’s global reach. The all-cash buy is also expected to relieve Jersey City, N.J.-based Organon of an $8.6 billion debt pile, accumulated after its debt-laden 2021 spinout from Merck & Co. Inc.
Biopharma deal value reached $79.22 billion in the first quarter (Q1) 2026, marking a strong start to the year and an increase of about 17% from $67.6 billion in Q1 2025 and similar to $78.93 billion in Q4 2025. The total is the highest first-quarter tally in recent years, and the highest quarter since Q4 2025 brought $80.65 billion.
The U.S. FDA has accepted and granted priority review to Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. and Merck & Co. Inc.’s BLA of ifinatamab deruxtecan, a B7-H3-directed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) to treat patients with advanced extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer.
Arriving a week ahead of April 28 PDUFA date, the U.S. FDA approval of Merck & Co. Inc.’s Idvynso (doravirine/islatravir) brings a new treatment option to adults with HIV-1 infection who are virologically suppressed. The approval is for those with no history of virologic treatment failure and no known substitutions associated with resistance to doravirine.
Recent evidence has suggested that secreted L-amino-acid oxidase, also known as interleukin-4-induced protein 1 (IL4I1), is involved in aromatic amino acid metabolism, as a key immunosuppressive enzyme expressed by tumor-associated myeloid cells, thus suppressing T-cell activation and proliferation within the tumor microenvironment.
The U.S. FDA has accepted and granted priority review to Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. and Merck & Co. Inc.’s BLA of ifinatamab deruxtecan, a B7-H3-directed antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) to treat patients with advanced extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer.
Abstracts released ahead of the American College of Cardiology meeting held in late March in New Orleans, along with the start of dosing near the end of January in Novartis AG’s phase IIb trial with siRNA therapy DII-235, also known as BW-20829, perked up the already-lively lipids/heart space.
As advances are made by bustling drug developers at work in the Wingless-related integration site (Wnt) pathway, other research is yielding new discoveries as well. Among the closely watched industry players in Wnt are Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Merck & Co. Inc., and Surrozen Inc.
What do a patent dispute over a CRISPR/Cas system, a rejected whistleblower case involving lab tests and a vaccine injury claim parading as multidistrict tort litigation have in common? All three were denied cert in the U.S. Supreme Court’s latest orders list.
Only a few months after reporting what it called “unprecedented” phase I data for its BCR-ABL1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor in chronic myeloid leukemia, Terns Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to an acquisition by Merck & Co. Inc. valued at about $6.7 billion. For Terns, the deal validates the decision last year to switch focus from its metabolic pipeline to oncology and, for Merck, it’s the latest move as the big pharma looks to shore up its offerings ahead of patent expirations for cancer blockbuster drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab).
