The J.P. Morgan (JPM) Healthcare Conference in San Francisco kicked off with a resounding bang as Johnson & Johnson (J&J) disclosed plans to acquire Intra-Cellular Therapies Inc. for $132 per share, which equates to an equity value of about $14.6 billion.

Kura Oncology, Inc. and Kyowa Kirin Co. Ltd.’s selective oral menin inhibitor ziftomenib showed encouraging data across multiple studies, the most encouraging of which were in combination with other standard of care therapies in patients with NPM1-mutant and KMT2A-rearranged  acute myeloid leukemia.

At the 66th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting, a plethora of companies presented clinical trial data highlighting their drugs targeting Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) in patients with blood cancers.

Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. is learning the hard way the downside of having a pipeline in a product. When a side effect crops up, investors are likely to worry that it may affect the potential of the drug in the numerous diseases the drug could potentially treat.

Our immune cells are not just “defenders” against deadly viruses and pathogens but also a great balancer for tissue homeostasis. For neurological disorders, understanding the neuro-immune axis could be key to treating previously untreatable conditions such as autism spectrum disorder, according to Jun R. Huh, professor of immunology at Harvard Medical School.

At the Breakthroughs in Muscular Dystrophy special meeting held in Chicago Nov. 19-20, 2024, and organized by the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT), multiple interventions at the RNA level were among the approaches that were presented to fight muscular dystrophies.

Since the isolation of the gene that causes Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), scientists have progressed in understanding the mechanisms that lead to muscular diseases that can be evident from the early stages of childhood. This has led to the development of diagnostics and therapeutics, some approved by the FDA.

Advertisements for Rezdiffra (resmetirom, Madrigal Pharmaceuticals Inc.), which was approved by the U.S. FDA in March 2024, adorned the lobby of The Liver Meeting 2024 being held at the San Diego Convention Center as well as the trolley stop across the street and other areas that doctors attending the meeting might be swayed. But inside the ballrooms of the convention center, companies were making presentations of data from clinical trials testing their drugs in patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) in hopes of potentially competing with Rezdiffra in a few years.