Author: IQ TIMES MEDIA
By Puyaan Singh Jan 12 (Reuters) – Weight-loss drug developer Viking Therapeutics CEO said on Monday that strategic interest in weight-loss drug deals is broader than it appears, as drugmakers seek to tap into the potential $150 billion market. Pharmaceutical companies are targeting the booming weight-loss drug market, which analysts estimate could exceed $150 billion annually by the end of the decade. Key growth drivers include expanded clinical applications, wider patient adoption, improved drug manufacturing capacity, and a pipeline of next‑generation therapies. “I think the interest is probably broader than is visible … more parties sort of circling around the…
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Amgen’s research chief said the company is very confident about its experimental obesity drug MariTide, as it prepares on Monday to unveil results from a mid-stage trial extension designed to show if the medication helps people maintain weight loss. The company will announce the latest findings – as well as results from a Phase 2 trial of the once-monthly injection in diabetes patients – at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco. “Other people are clamoring to develop once-monthly or less frequent dose medicines, and we are unambiguously in the lead there,” Jay…
By Michael Erman SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Pfizer is preparing for a consumer market for obesity drugs on par with the booming business it saw after it launched erectile dysfunction drug Viagra in 1998, CEO Albert Bourla said on Monday. Bourla said that even when the drugmaker was negotiating its purchase of weight-loss drugmaker Metsera, initially announced in September 2025, Pfizer did not expect the cash-pay market for obesity drugs currently dominated by Eli Lilly and Co and Novo Nordisk to get so big, so fast. “Both Lilly and Novo presented their sales and had significant sales outside…
Jan 13 (Reuters) – Global drugmakers are ramping up U.S. manufacturing and stockpiling inventory as the Trump administration considers imposing a 100% tariff on imported branded and patented medicines. Although enforcement is delayed for companies investing in U.S. manufacturing, the policy has already prompted fast-tracked projects, price cuts and direct-to-consumer sales. Pfizer and AstraZeneca secured multi-year tariff exemptions through pricing deals and commitments to the new TrumpRx.gov platform. Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson and Merck have pledged billions to expand U.S. operations to avoid penalties. Here’s what drugmakers are doing to mitigate supply-chain risks and reassure investors: Pfizer Pfizer reached…
By Sneha S K and Gnaneshwar Rajan Jan 13 (Reuters) – Thermo Fisher Scientific’s pharmaceutical services business has won a number of contracts to help its customers move production from Europe or Asia to the U.S., the medical equipment maker’s CEO, Marc Casper, said on Tuesday. “There’s a very big focus on reshoring more production and activity to the U.S.,” Casper said at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, adding that the trend is going to be a tailwind in 2027 and 2028. U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed pharma companies to onshore domestic manufacturing to the U.S. Although enforcement of…
By Sriparna Roy and Christy Santhosh Jan 14 (Reuters) – Investors are eyeing a rebound in the U.S. biotech sector in 2026, as more companies are expected to go public amid a renewed deal-making appetite and a lower interest rate scenario, even as they come to terms with the political and regulatory environment. Amid President Donald Trump’s policy shifts, the most disruptive scenarios for healthcare now appear less likely, helping restore a degree of confidence after tariff threats, funding cuts and sweeping changes to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “While some uncertainty still exists, the worst case scenarios have…
By Christy Santhosh Jan 14 (Reuters) – AbbVie said on Wednesday it is seeking to expand its presence in the fast-growing market for obesity treatments, leaning on the weight-loss drug it licensed last year from Danish biotech Gubra. Gubra’s drug, GUBamy, mimics the hormone amylin and could be used as an alternative to popular GLP-1 drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Zepbound to help people lose more weight with fewer side effects. AbbVie is focusing on “tolerability and durability of weight loss for patients that tend to cycle off of these first-gen therapies,” chief medical officer Roopal Thakkar…
Jan 15 (Reuters) – Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to accelerate R&D, betting on new modeling tools and automated labs to unlock efficiency gains across their pipeline. Industry forecasts suggest that the use of machine-learning to optimize target discovery, design molecules and streamline clinical-trial planning could halve early-stage development timelines and costs within the next three to five years. Below are the major AI-related partnerships announced from 2025 through early 2026: Deal Partners Deal size Primary objective announcem (as ent reported) Jan 7, PostEra $610 mln Expand 2025 × Pfizer potential; Pfizer–PostEra AI incl. $12 Lab and…
HONG KONG, Jan 16 (Reuters) – China’s population policy is emerging as a key part of its economic strategy as Beijing rolls out its most wide-ranging push to boost a flagging birth rate, with official population data due on January 19 set to show a fourth consecutive annual drop. Beijing is looking at a total potential cost of around 180 billion yuan ($25.8 billion) in 2026 to boost births, according to Reuters estimates, as authorities grapple to undo decades of strict population control that helped tackle poverty but reshaped Chinese families. The estimate includes the cost of the national child…
The former chief executive of a biopharmaceutical company used insider information about contamination in a COVID-19 vaccine to make more than $10 million in trades, the New York Attorney General’s office alleged Thursday in a new lawsuit against the executive, Robert Kramer. Kramer was the CEO of Emergent BioSolutions, a government contractor hired to mass produce coronavirus vaccine doses, 400 million of which had to be destroyed in 2021 because of contamination at Emergent’s plant in Baltimore. Before the contamination issues were made public, Kramer sold his company shares and received $10.1 million, according to the attorney general’s lawsuit, which seeks…