Two FDA approvals, six platform deals, a European alarm, a Novo listing debate, and a China mega-deal — this week's biggest pharma stories, explained.
Feature|Articles|October 1, 2026
MRD Testing Is Becoming the Most Important Tool in Oncology Drug Development: Q&A with Eric Matthews
Author(s)Mike Hollan, Eric Matthews
MRD testing is transforming oncology trials — compressing timelines, enriching populations, and generating earlier answers.
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A major challenge for the pharma and biotech industries is the timelines for drug development. As efficient as clinical trials and testing have become, it still takes a significant amount of time to analyze the data and ensure that the reported trial results are accurate. During this window, patients awaiting new treatments are left waiting.
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Real-world data from Novo's Octane study show patients who switched from injectable GLP-1 therapy to oral semaglutide lost an average of 4.1% of their body weight within three months.
Life sciences spends billions on compliance — but WhatsApp, iMessage, and SMS conversations between field teams and HCPs remain invisible to oversight.
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.
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