With positive phase IIa cardiovascular disease results in hand, Marea Therapeutics Inc. said it is ready to move on to a phase IIb study sometime in the second quarter of 2025. MAR-001, a monoclonal antibody targeting the protein coding gene ANGPTL4, produced an up to a 52.5% placebo-adjusted mean reduction in remnant cholesterol and up to a 52.7% placebo-adjusted mean reduction in triglycerides at 12 weeks.

Theriva Biologics Inc.’s stroma-targeting oncolytic virus approach yielded positive findings in metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, with the top-line readout of phase IIb data showing VCN-01 (zabilugene almadenorepvec) in combination with chemotherapy bested chemotherapy alone on primary and secondary endpoints, which included overall survival.

South Korean government and biopharmaceutical industry representatives urged American policymakers May 7 to refrain from imposing tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, and to spare allies if pharma tariffs are deemed necessary. Both Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare on May 4 and the Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization on May 6 submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Commerce in response to its ongoing investigation of pharmaceutical imports.

The appointment May 6 of Vinay Prasad as the head of the U.S. FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) “bodes poorly” for Sarepta Therapeutics Inc.’s development-stage pipeline, said Wainwright analyst Mitchell Kapoor – and Wall Street reflected as much, as the stock (NASDAQ:SRPT) ended that day down 26.6% vs. an XBI drop of 6.6% – this ahead of the after-hours earnings disclosure that pushed the Cambridge, Mass.-based firm down even farther by more than another 20%, with the XBI unchanged.