This year’s IO update is more compact because the essential story has contracted. The odds of success have shifted dramatically and disparately among the various players — all due to Merck’s Keytruda.
Acceleron has four drugs in development in the hematology, neuromuscular, and pulmonary disease areas. Its lead drug luspatercept has completed Phase 3 trials for treating myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS).
“We had to decide whether to spend a lot of money to bring on a sales force and marketing team, and expand manufacturing to meet demand, or take our resources and refocus them on these rare disorders.”
Alexis Howerton is a first-time pharma CEO who saw potential in an older drug class that had failed in its targeted indications. She then jumped feet first into obtaining the ideal candidate compound and starting a company to develop it.
From founding the company to funding it, the CEO of Aurinia Pharmaceuticals explains the genesis of the company and why he left retirement to return to guide the company.
Drawing from his 27 years in the pharma industry, Chris Garabedian shares useful lessons for combining business savvy and scientific leadership in drug development.
This French company is addressing vertigo and hearing loss inside the inner ear.
Beginning her career with the query — how does biology cause disease? — Vicki Sato progressed to business, turning scientific understanding into new therapeutic drugs. Sato has been a biopharma leader since the industry’s formative years, helping drive the growth of Biogen and Vertex, and she is still guiding new companies today.
Our company to watch this month is Landos Biopharma, which is aiming for better targeting and better delivery of treatments for GI and other autoimmune diseases.
Her mother was the first woman of her village in Cyprus to go to high school. Anna Protopapas shared her mother’s drive to bypass all barriers, and she now runs the biopharma company Mersana, after many years in the leadership of Millennium and Takeda.
Reata refused to take what seemed like a dead-end trial as a losing proposition. Instead, the company went to work mining the trial for the very insights that subsequently saved it.
CytoDyn’s expressed ambitions seem bold but reasonably free of hyperbole. It is only natural to hope for the best possible outcome here, considering the obvious need for new HIV and other immunological therapies.
AmpliPhi Biosciences is pushing bacteriophage-therapy development for drug-resistant infections — not to replace, but possibly to augment antibiotics.
We check in with the companies we profiled from this section in 2017 to see what has changed … if anything.
