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The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, one of the industry’s signature events, is back live and in person this week after two years of being virtual. I’ve been here the past few days watching company presentations and speaking with lots of executives and investors in the healthcare space. On the bright side of the things I’ve seen–there is a lot of cool science and innovation happening, and I have been happily nerding out with folks at the conference. But the mood is definitely mixed as the industry faces a down market and an economy that’s currently flirting with recession in a down market that’s seen a pullback in investments (I’ve noticed a lot of executives presenting have been emphasizing their companies’ cash positions, for example).
“There’s gonna be a lot of building this year,” Vijay Pande, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz told me. “With the market being down, that’s never a fun time, right when you’re in it. But I think these are the kind of times that when we look back, I think it’s where the real companies get built.”
There were definitely some surprising shakeups announced this week. Gene editing company Editas announced that it’s reducing its headcount by 20% and restructuring its clinical priorities. Its current CSO, Mark Shearman, will be departing the company. The company says this prioritization will give it a cash runway through 2025. Meanwhile, vaccine companies Novavax and CureVac both announced that they’re getting new CEOs, John C. Jacobs and Alexander Zehnder.
There have also been a few acquisitions announced: BioNTech is acquiring its AI partner InstaDeep for about $440 million, for example. Diagnostics company Qiagen completed its $150 million acquisition of Veragen. AstraZeneca is purchasing CinCor Pharma and Ipsen is snapping up Alberio, a biotech startup focused on rare diseases. I’ve been hearing some notes of surprise, though, that there haven’t been more such announcements. One of those notes came from Pande, who added that he at least expects to see more acquisition announcements later this year or perhaps early next year. “That basically reflects a larger consolidation that probably was necessary anyways,” he says. “There are just so many companies and so much diffuse talent everywhere.”
That said, there were still more than a few notes of optimism about the long-term prospects for healthcare. “America is the innovation engine driving the rest of the world,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf told attendees on Tuesday morning, and I heard that sentiment echoed in other conversations that I had. (And reflected in announcements like Element Biosciences saying its benchtop sequencer can deliver a $200 genome.) Despite the macroeconomic headwinds, executives are confident their companies can be successful in the coming years as long as they’re hitting their strategic plans.
I think Arnon Rosenthal, CEO of Alector Therapeutics may have put it best when I asked him what his company will need to do in the coming months to keep investor confidence and boost his company’s stock price. “We need to show good efficacy data!” he replied. At the end of the day, the bottom line depends on performance.
Lecanemab: How The FDA-Approved Alzheimer’s Drug Works And Its Possible Side Effects
Eisai
The FDA granted accelerated approval to Alzeihmer’s drug lecanemab (brand name Leqembi) on Friday, however, severe side effects and a death during a clinical trial possibly linked to the drug has many in the health industry cautious in their optimism of the drug, which would treat a disease that has no known cure.
Read more here.
Deals Of The Week
Antibody Pairs: AbbVie and biotech startup Immunome have entered an agreement to develop new antibody therapies for the treatment of solid tumors. The deal includes a $30 million upfront payment for Immunome plus additional milestone payments and royalties.
Metabolic Diseases: HighTide Therapeutics, which is developing treatments for metabolic and digestive diseases, announced it raised a $107 million series C to advance the clinical development of its drug candidates.
Arterial Disease: Medical device company AVS announced it raised a $20 million series B round to advance clinical development of its device for the treatment of arterial diseases and coronary cases.
Health Fintech: Paytient, which enables patients to create interest-free payment plans so they can afford their medical bills, announced that it raised a $40.5 million series B round.
Noteworthy
Walgreens reported a $3.7 billion loss to cover its share of a massive global settlement of claims its pharmacies contributed to the opioid epidemic.
Trials of cutting-edge cancer vaccines could kick off in the U.K. as soon as September, German Covid vaccine maker BioNTech announced on Friday, part of a new partnership between the British government and the German biotech company.
Walgreens-backed doctor clinic operator VillageMD now has a network of more than 680 locations across the U.S., including 200 adjacent to the pharmacy chain’s U.S. drugstores.
Rite Aid said its chief executive officer Heyward Donigan is leaving the company, which has struggled to become profitable in her reign of more than three years.
Coronavirus Updates
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Attendees of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference may be back live instead of virtual, but Covid-19 was still a hot topic of conversation. Both Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel discussed the future of Covid vaccines, with both expressing an expectation that the model to expect is the flu–a regular booster shot every year, updated for the variants that are in circulation. Both companies are also working on combination Covid/flu boosters, which they think will help improve uptake.
On the treatment side, Regeneron was one of the first companies to develop an antibody treatment against Covid, but as the virus mutated, the FDA rescinded its emergency use authorization for it and several other antibody therapies. But speaking at the conference, the company’s CSO George Yancopoulos said that they’ve identified a Covid antibody that targets a conserved part of the virus that doesn’t mutate very often, which “will lower the risk of reducing activity against future variants,” he said. The company expects to enter clinical development of this antibody therapy later this year.
One Year After Novak Djokovic Was Deported For Refusing Vaccination, The Australian Open’s Covid Rules Are Much More Lax
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Tennis players competing at the Australian Open this month will still be able to take part if they test positive for Covid-19, tournament director Craig Tiley said on Monday, a major departure from the tournament’s stringent pandemic policies from the past two years that saw crowds banned from matches and nine-time champion Novak Djokovic be deported over his refusal to get vaccinated.
Read more here.
Other Coronavirus News
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Peter Welch issued a letter to Pfizer asking for more info about the company’s planned vaccine price increases, but Forbes contributor John Lamattina argues their missive illustrates a misunderstanding of how vaccine prices look in practice.
A new study found that over 96% of wastewater samples from airplanes contained the coronavirus that causes Covid-19.
Across Forbes
Armed With ChatGPT, Cybercriminals Build Malware And Plot Fake Girl Bots
Binance Is Bleeding Assets, $12 Billion Gone In Less Than 60 Days
Trump’s Tax Returns Expose Sweetheart Loans For Ivanka And Her Brothers
What Else We are Reading
Human gene linked to bigger brains was born from seemingly useless DNA (Science)
Many airplanes are unequipped for in-flight medical emergencies (Popular Science)
A Mysterious Syndrome Can Strike Decades After Polio (The Atlantic)
