After gaining 5.78% in January, the BioWorld Cancer Index reversed course, falling 4.74% year-to-date by the end of March. The index’s movement has closely tracked broader market trends. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index climbed to 5.15% at the end of January but ended the first quarter down 1.54%. Similarly, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 4.7% in the first month of the year before slipping to a 1.28% loss through March.
China approved 48 first-in-class innovative drugs, as well as a significant number of medications for pediatric and rare diseases, thanks to measures aimed at enhancing review efficiency and accelerating patient access to novel therapies, according to a report released by China’s National Medical Products Administration.
Lexeo Therapeutics Inc. produced more positive interim data from early stage studies of its gene therapy to treat Friedreich’s ataxia cardiomyopathy. The results have prompted the company to continue their ongoing dialogue with U.S. FDA regulators to finalize a registrational study protocol and launch that study by early 2026 with data the following year.
The nationwide preliminary injunction keeping the U.S. NIH from slashing its indirect cost rate to a flat 15% has become permanent. In issuing the permanent injunction and final judgment April 4 in three challenges to the rate change, Judge Angel Kelley, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, said the NIH’s Feb. 7 notice that it would begin imposing the 15% rate Feb. 10 to all existing and future grants violated the Administrative Procedure Act, as the action was arbitrary and capricious, was impermissibly retroactive and failed to follow notice-and-comment procedures.
Rhythm Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s sales with Imcivree (setmelanotide) in weight management could exceed $1 billion by 2028 if hypothalamic obesity (HO) is added to the label of the drug, Oppenheimer analyst Leland Gershell said in a report. Boston-based Rhythm rolled out positive top-line data from the pivotal phase III study called Transcend with the melanocortin-4 receptor agonist in HO. The global trial met its primary endpoint with a statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful reduction in body mass index in adult and pediatric HO patients vs. placebo.
ABL Bio Inc. announced April 7 that it sealed a potential £2.075 billion (US$2.65 billion) license deal with GSK plc, granting GSK global rights to use ABL’s blood-brain barrier (BBB) penetrating bispecific antibody platform, Grabody-B, to develop multiple programs in the neurodegenerative disease arena. Under the terms signed April 5, ABL agreed to transfer Grabody-B-related technology and know-how to GSK, upon which GSK will assume responsibility for preclinical and clinical development, manufacturing and commercialization.
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