GE Healthcare Technologies Inc. agreed to purchase medical imaging company Intelerad Medical Systems Inc. for $2.3 billion in cash, boosting its capabilities in cardiology and radiology. The deal, expected to close in the first half of 2026, advances GE Healthcare's dual strategies of expanding from primarily inpatient products to outpatient and ambulatory care settings and tripling its cloud-enabled products by 2028.

Sandoz Inc. came out the big winner Nov. 18 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit wiped out $39 million in infringement damages a jury had awarded to Allergan plc. Sandoz overcame “the doubly high burden of persuading us to overturn a jury verdict of no invalidity,” the appellate court said in its precedential opinion.

Two Flagship Pioneering Inc. biopharma companies founded in the last five years and focused on proteomic and genomic technologies entered agreements to help discover new therapeutics for respiratory and liver diseases under a framework collaboration with GSK plc. Under that agreement, Profound Therapeutics Inc. and Quotient Therapeutics Inc. would use their platform technologies to discover novel proteins and targets for developing drugs to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, with Quotient taking on a third indication with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.

A new oral HER2-directed breast cancer therapy from Bayer AG, and its companion diagnostic from Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., have been approved by the U.S. FDA. Hyrnuo (sevabertinib), a reversible tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was greenlit by the agency for adults with locally advanced or metastatic non-squamous advanced HER2-mutant non-small-cell lung cancer.

Abbott Laboratories made plans to enter the cancer screening market with its reported acquisition of Exact Sciences Corp. The deal will pay Exact Sciences shareholders $105 per share in cash, a nearly 50% premium to Exact’s unaffected share price on Nov. 19. That represents a total equity value of approximately $21 billion and an estimated enterprise value of $23 billion.

Solventum Corp. continued its restructuring with a second significant acquisition this year, the proposed purchase of privately held Acera Surgical Inc. for $725 million in cash plus up to $125 in contingent cash payments based on achievement of specified milestones. St. Louis.-based Acera projected that its synthetic wound care products will bring in $90 million in sales this year.

The resolution of the budget impasse between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill sidestepped a number of problems, including some cuts to Medicare payment rates for clinical laboratory testing services. However, that pause is only in effect through the end of January 2026, leaving operators of these labs with a fiscal sword of Damocles to manage.

U.S. and European organ-on-a-chip specialty biotechnology companies are driving development of organ-on-a-chip technologies, fueled by the U.S. FDA’s decision to phase out animal testing for investigational new drugs.

Tempest Therapeutics Inc. entered definitive agreements approved by its board to acquire certain dual-targeting CAR T programs from Factor Bioscience Inc. and its affiliates in an all-stock transaction expected to close in early 2026.

In a verbal sparring over who can deliver the lowest drug prices in the U.S., several Senate Democrats are urging President Donald Trump to immediately release the list of second-round Medicare-negotiated drug prices, instead of doing what they characterize as “ambiguous” and “opaque” pricing deals with individual biopharma companies.