Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
By Amina Niasse NEW YORK, March 2 (Reuters) – Telehealth company Hims & Hers Health, known for its weight-loss drug business, is promising it can diversify away from its reliance on compounded GLP-1 sales in the U.S., but that may not happen soon enough for investors who are growing impatient. Hims drew regulatory scrutiny last month with its plan to launch a $49 version of Novo Nordisk’s brand-new Wegovy pill. It quickly reversed course after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration referred the company to the Department of Justice and threatened to restrict the ingredients that pharmacies mix to make…
March 3 (Reuters) – Diagnostics firm Droplet Biosciences said on Tuesday it is collaborating with Nvidia to use the chipmaker’s AI infrastructure to speed up post-surgery cancer test results. The company has been using Nvidia Parabricks, a GPU-accelerated software suite, to drastically speed up genomic data analysis for DNA sequencing. * Droplet said its method can detect residual disease in 24hours by analyzing lymphatic fluid collected post surgery,compared to the four to six weeks it typically takes for tumorremnants to appear in blood-based tests. * “By leveraging NVIDIA Parabricks’ acceleration, we’ve beenable to compress some of our most computationally intensivesteps…
March 3 (Reuters) – Moderna has agreed to pay Genevant Sciences, a subsidiary of Roivant Sciences, and Arbutus Biopharma up to $2.25 billion to settle a long-running legal fight over the technology that made its COVID-19 vaccine possible, the companies said on Tuesday. Under the deal, Moderna will pay $950 million upfront in July 2026, with an additional $1.3 billion that depends on the outcome of a separate legal appeal. In extended trading, Moderna’s shares jumped more than 10%, Arbutus rose 11%, while Roivant was up about 1%. The deal resolves all U.S. and international legal actions accusing Moderna of…
By Nqobile Dludla JOHANNESBURG, March 4 (Reuters) – Aspen Pharmacare aims to secure sub‑Saharan African approval for Eli Lilly’s blockbuster weight‑loss drug Mounjaro as early as this year, its CEO said on Wednesday, capitalising on soaring regional demand for obesity treatments. South Africa-based Aspen’s push to register Mounjaro across the region signals its bid to become a key manufacturing and distribution partner for global drugmakers eyeing one of the last major untapped markets for GLP‑1 weight‑loss treatments. GLP‑1 treatments are not yet widely available in the continent, offering both growth potential and a test of how quickly such drugs can…
By Diana Novak Jones March 4 (Reuters) – A state court judge in Missouri gave an initial green light on Wednesday to a proposed $7.25 billion settlement to resolve thousands of lawsuits claiming Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller causes cancer. Judge Timothy Boyer in St. Louis granted preliminary approval to the deal struck between the German company and attorneys seeking to represent a nationwide class of people who say Roundup exposure caused their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The deal is aimed at resolving most of the roughly 65,000 remaining claims pending in federal and state courts. Boyer rejected a request by other lawyers who…
March 4 (Reuters) – PepGen said on Wednesday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has placed a partial clinical hold on its mid‑stage trial of a rare muscle disease drug, sending its shares plunging over 25% in extended trading. The drug, PGN‑EDODM1, is being tested for myotonic dystrophy type 1, a genetic disease that causes muscles to weaken and tighten over time, making movement and daily activities harder. PepGen said the health regulator’s concerns relate to earlier laboratory and animal studies the company submitted. The agency did not flag any safety concerns from patient data generated in an early-stage…
March 5 (Reuters) – Eli Lilly said on Thursday it had rolled out a platform to help employers connect with organizations offering low-cost benefits and comprehensive obesity-care programs, aiming to widen access to its blockbuster weight-loss drug, Zepbound. Through Lilly Employer Connect platform, its multi-doseweight-loss drug device Zepbound KwikPen will be available tonetwork pharmacies at a discounted price of $449 for all doses. The program provides employees access to weight-lossmedicines at lower out-of-pocket costs, and gives employers greater cost predictability and transparency “By enabling coverage outside traditional benefit designs,we lower barriers to treatment and give employers greatercontrol over how they…
March 5 (Reuters) – CVS Health will launch an AI-enabled platform in partnership with Alphabet’s Google Cloud unit that will bring together data from diverse sources to help customers manage their health in real time, they said on Thursday. Health100 will be an integrated health care engagement platform for customers, regardless of the pharmacy or insurer they use. The initial launch of Health100 will be in 2026, with details expected to be revealed at The Check Up, Google’s annual health event later in March. * The Health100 will use built-in agentic AI – which needsminimal human intervention – to provide…
SHANGHAI, March 6 (Reuters) – China has approved Pfizer’s GLP-1 treatment Xianweiying for long-term weight management in overweight or obese adults, the US drugmaker said on WeChat on Friday, boosting competition in a market analysts expect to be worth billions in coming years.The injection belongs to the class of GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs sold locally by drugmakers such as Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Innovent Biologics. “This marks a breakthrough in field of weight management,” Sciwind Biosciences, from which Pfizer licensed mainland China commercialisation rights in February, said on its website. Sales of Novo’s Wegovy on Alibaba’s Tmall e-commerce platform…
By Christy Santhosh March 6 (Reuters) – French drugmaker Servier said on Friday it would buy U.S.-based Day One Biopharmaceuticals for about $2.5 billion, expanding its brain tumor treatment portfolio. Servier has offered $21.50 per share in cash, a premium of 68% to the stock’s last close. Shares of Day One jumped 65% in morning trade. The deal will give the company access to Day One’s Ojemda, the only U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved monotherapy for pediatric low-grade glioma, the most common form of brain tumor in children. Servier already sells adult glioma drug Voranigo and the deal strengthens its…