The U.K. government has announced it will cut the rebate pharma companies have to pay on net sales of new drugs, reducing the rate from the record of 22.5% in 2025 to 14.5% for 2026. That is less than the 15% cap agreed earlier this month as part of a U.K./U.S. economic prosperity deal, which placed a requirement on the U.K. to improve the operating environment for pharmaceutical companies.
Relation Therapeutics Ltd. will collaborate with Novartis AG in a $1.7 billion deal to develop multiple programs to find and advance targets for treating atopic diseases caused by immune dysregulation. Novartis will pay Relation an up-front amount, an equity investment and R&D funding of $55 million. It’s the company’s second deal with big pharma in the past 12 months.
The UK Health Security Agency has identified a new recombinant strain of mpox (formerly monkeypox) that contains elements of clade Ib and clade IIb of the virus, in a traveler who recently returned from Asia.
Ireland is taking stock of the implications Trump administration tariffs and drug pricing policies hold for its world-leading biomanufacturing sector, which has been largely built on the back of investment by U.S. pharma companies – and is hugely reliant on exports to the U.S.
Shares of Cosmo Pharmaceuticals NV rose sharply on Dec. 3 following top-line pivotal phase III data showing a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in male androgenetic alopecia patients receiving clascoterone 5%, the first topical androgen receptor inhibitor, which uses the same active ingredient as the company’s acne treatment, Winlevi.
Despite a raft of government policies to turn the ship around, the latest figures show a further decline in setting up and staging commercial clinical trials in the U.K., with a 25% fall in the number of patients recruited over the past two years.
The U.K. government has secured a deal guaranteeing there will be no tariffs on the £6.6 billion (US$8.7 billion) of pharmaceutical products exported annually to the U.S., as part of a package of measures under which the U.K. will pay more for patented drugs.
Vandria SA published phase I data on a potential new mechanism of action in treating Alzheimer’s disease, demonstrating its orally available and brain-penetrant mitochondria-boosting compound, VNA-318, engages its intended target.
Novo Nordisk A/S’ wild card bet that its GLP-1 receptor agonist semaglutide could be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease has not paid off, with the company reporting two phase III trials have shown no effect on slowing disease progression.