Finance

New U.S. guidance exempts orphan drugs, nuclear medicines, cell and gene therapies, and other specialty products from the 100% pharmaceutical tariff when imported from 19 named countries.

Novo licensed Hengrui's once-weekly oral GLP-1/GIP dual agonist HRS-1596 in a deal worth up to $2.6 billion, while AstraZeneca invested $2 billion in Summit Therapeutics to pair ivonescimab with its antibody-drug conjugate portfolio.

Eli Lilly is set to pay InnoCare Pharma up to $3.35 billion to discover and develop compounds against upwards of five undisclosed targets.

EVERSANA's Jen Norton talks about how AI is reshaping market access strategy, a new analysis from MIT and Harvard Business School names clinical data harmonization as the real barrier to enterprise AI adoption in life sciences, and Novo Nordisk's CEO says he's open to a direct NYSE listing.

Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar says he's open to a direct NYSE listing that would replace the company's ADR structure.

AbbVie partners with Iambic to deploy its AI molecular superintelligence platform, while Telix Pharmaceuticals agrees to acquire radioisotope leader ITM.

Lisata Therapeutics acquires Marea Therapeutics and secures $225 million in concurrent financing, while mAbxience and Sandoz partner to develop and globally commercialize an emicizumab biosimilar.

EVERSANA's Alan Crowther on why MFN's three programs, compounding interactions with IRA and 340B, and leverage gaps make it pharma's most consequential pricing challenge.

Orbis Medicines strikes a partnership with Novo, Dualitas Therapeutics enters collaboration with Roche, and Aethlon Medical has agreed to merge with North Immunology.

Sling Therapeutics closes a $123 million Series C to advance linsitinib, while Circle Pharma raises an oversubscribed $92.5 million Series E to move CID-165, into clinical development for ER-positive breast cancer.

A new benchmarking survey of 33 biotech and medtech leaders reveals a leadership community operating in crisis mode — and what that means for how the industry needs to rethink peer support, advisory and the isolation built intothe CEO role itself.

Novartis investors intensify pressure on the company's M&A strategy after a string of trial failures, Michelle Carnahan argues health care needs an orchestration layer rather than more point solutions, and Nacho Quinones and Aisling O'Loughlin make the case for synthetic advisory boards in biopharma decision-making.

Novartis shareholders share deepened trust issues around the company's dealmaking strategy.

Artisan Partners' David Samra is publicly calling for Novartis to overhaul its board and compensation structure following back-to-back trial failures.

Moonwalk Biosciences has closed a $70 million Series B to advance its adipose-targeted RNAi platform toward first-in-human studies.

CAR-T safety halts, a rare disease trial failure, a China licensing deal, an mRNA flu vaccine advance, and nine new MFN agreements.

Ultragenyx shares plunge more than 40% after apazunersen fails to meet both endpoints in a Phase III trial for Angelman syndrome.

Eli Lilly has agreed to acquire Merida Biosciences for up to $2.875 billion to gain a precision autoantibody degradation platform led by MER511.

A recent study of more than 15,000 adults over 55 with obesity found that sustained Zepbound use was associated with up to 38% lower monthly healthcare costs at 12 months compared with untreated matched controls.

Costco’s partnership with SCAN Group suggests that the next competitive advantage in Medicare may come not only from managing insurance risk, but from controlling a trusted consumer healthcare ecosystem.

UroGen Pharma has invested in IntraGel Therapeutics and secured an exclusive option to license Tumocure, and Lupin's subsidiary has licensed European commercialization rights to Tenpoint's Yuvezzi.

Rohit Tripathi, VP of Industry Strategy at RELEX, talks with Pharmaceutical Executive about the impact new phased tariffs will have on reshoring pharma manufacturing.

How drug pricing, tariffs, and manufacturing decisions are becoming connected.

LEO Pharma agrees to acquire dersimelagon, OmniAb signs a ion channel discovery collaboration with Eli Lilly, Chugai grants GSK an exclusive worldwide license to AID351, and BioMarin acquires Alesta Therapeutics to gain ALE1.

From a $1.32 billion rare epilepsy acquisition to AI drug discovery partnerships, biotech IPOs, and a rare disease investment rebound — here's what moved the market this week.