Timothy Leary is dead, but he could be on the outside looking in with a smile on his face as U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest executive order (EO) fuels a surge in investment in companies researching and developing psychedelic drugs to treat mental health issues. The EO, Accelerating medical treatments for serious mental illness, is intended to address the increasing burden of suicide and serious mental illness, which impacts more than 14 million Americans.
The already-thriving CAR T space took another big stride forward as Eli Lilly and Co. disclosed its plan to acquire Boston-based Kelonia Therapeutics Inc. for as much as $7 billion in cash, including an up-front payment of $3.25 billion, with the rest coming if clinical, regulatory and commercial goals are reached.
As U.S. President Donald Trump’s third nominee for CDC director, Erica Schwartz will soon find out if three times really is a charm. Trump announced the nomination on social media April 16, touting Schwartz’s credentials for the job. Calling her “incredibly talented,” Trump cited her “distinguished career” as a military doctor, in the Navy and Coast Guard, and her service as deputy surgeon general during his first term in office.
Kailera Therapeutics Inc.’s “obesity-first” approach continues to resonate with investors, with the company pricing an upsized IPO, offering 39 million shares at $16 apiece for gross proceeds of $625 million. Full exercise of the underwriters’ option could add another $93.8 million, bringing the total to nearly $719 million, easily topping Sana Biotechnology Inc.’s $675.6 million 2021 IPO and setting a new record for U.S. biopharma IPOs, according to BioWorld data.
U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert Kennedy made his first stop April 16 on a congressional tour in support of President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal 2027 budget, which would reduce discretional spending for HHS and its agencies by about 12%.
Nearly a year after the first U.S. commercial launch of the multicancer molecular residual disease (MRD) detection platform Pathlight, developer Saga Diagnostics entered a definitive merger agreement under which Roche Holding AG subsidiary Foundation Medicine Inc. will take over the firm in return for up to $595 million in payments.
Abbott Laboratories saw its shares fall in early trading April 16 after cutting its guidance for 2026 on the back of dilution related to its $21 billion acquisition of Exact Sciences Corp. The company revised its full year adjusted earnings per share guidance to $5.38 to 5.58, down from $5.55 to $5.80 previously. The updated outlook includes 20 cents of dilution related to the Exact deal. Abbott also reported first quarter profits of $1.08 billion, down 18.7% from a year ago.
Given its recent decision in a challenge to a West Virginia law, it’s no surprise that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a 2-1 unpublished opinion April 14 overturning a lower court that had refused a preliminary injunction to stall a similar Maryland law that would require drug manufacturers to offer 340B prescription drug discounts to unlimited contract pharmacies.
Despite key vacancies, ongoing staffing challenges and policy issues at the U.S. CDC, FDA and NIH, some of the regulatory churn that roiled those agencies in the first year of the second Trump administration is settling a bit, at least in terms of the number of executive orders (EOs) coming out of the Oval Office.
In what shakes out to be the largest follow-on stock offering in biopharma history, Revolution Medicines Inc., an oncology company that was the subject of buyout rumors earlier this year, priced 10.56 million shares to raise $1.5 billion just two days after wowing investors with top-line phase III data of its RAS inhibitor daraxonrasib in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
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