Viatris employees rang the Nasdaq bell on Nov. 16, marking the one-year anniversary of the merged Mylan and Pfizer Upjohn company
When Mylan and Pfizer’s Upjohn unit merged last year, headlines touted the $12 billion deal and newly named Viatris as the largest generic drugmaker in the world. But that’s not exactly how the company wanted to be known.
So Viatris — which rhymes with Beatrice — began working to create a new brand and culture from scratch around its distinct mix of old pharma blockbusters while layering in a massive portfolio of generic and OTC meds and building up a fresh pipeline of biosimilars.
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While oncology researchers have long pursued the potential of cellular immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, it was unclear whether these therapies would ever reach patients due to the complexity of manufacturing and costs of development. Fortunately, the recent successful development and regulatory approval of chimeric antigen receptor-engineered T (CAR-T) cells have demonstrated the significant benefit of these therapies to patients.
Stéphane Bancel, Moderna CEO
Even as public health officials remain guarded about their comments on the likelihood Omicron will escape the reach of the currently approved Covid-19 vaccines, there’s growing scientific consensus that we’re facing a variant that threatens to overwhelm the vaccine barricades that have been erected.
Stéphane Bancel, the CEO of Moderna, one of the leading mRNA players whose quick vault into the markets with a highly effective vaccine created an instant multibillion-dollar market, added his voice to the rising chorus early Tuesday. According to Bancel, there will be a significant drop in efficacy when the average immune system is confronted by Omicron. The only question now is: How much?
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After years as the top spending pharma TV advertiser, AbbVie’s Humira brand finally downshifted earlier this year, ceding much of its marketing budget to up-and-coming sibling meds Skyrizi and Rinvoq. However, now Humira is back on TV with ads for another condition — Hidradenitis suppurativa (HS).
The chronic and painful skin condition results in lumps and abscesses caused by inflammation or infection of sweat glands, most often in the armpits or groin. Humira was first approved to treat HS in 2015 and remains the only FDA-approved drug for the condition. Two TV ads both note more than 30,000 people with HS have been prescribed Humira.
Drug developers at Gilead Sciences are moonlighting as college professors these days. However, it’s not a side hustle for extra income, but a new program to help draw Black and Hispanic students to the industry.
Chemists, manufacturing experts, biologics scientists and supply chain managers are just some of the employee teachers Gilead is enlisting to explain the pharma business from drug discovery to commercialization.
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GlaxoSmithKline has appointed Philip Dormitzer, formerly chief scientific officer of Pfizer’s viral vaccines unit, as its newest global head of vaccines R&D, looking to leverage one of the leading minds behind Pfizer and BioNTech’s RNA collaboration that led to Covid-19 jab Comirnaty, the British drug giant said Tuesday.
Dormitzer had been with Pfizer for a little more than six years, joining up after a seven-year stint with Novartis, where he reached the role of US head of research and head of global virology for the company’s vaccines and diagnostics unit.
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Jeff Dachis, founder and CEO, One Drop
Jeff Dachis knows how to pick a business wave — although it may be more accurate to say he knows how to create them. The founder and CEO of digital health platform One Drop is working to transform the industry with predictive analytics and sophisticated tools. Alongside partner Bayer, which has now invested enough to own a third of the company, Dachis and One Drop are advancing data-driven personalized self-care for chronic disease management.
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Barely a month after disappointing data shattered hopes for a major label expansion for the GI tumor drug Qinlock, Deciphera is making a major pivot — scrapping development plans for that drug and discarding another while it hunkers down and focuses on two remaining drugs in the pipeline.
As a result, 140 of its staffers will be laid off.
The restructuring, which claims the equivalent of 35% of its total workforce, will take place across all departments including commercial, R&D as well as general and administrative support functions, Deciphera said, as it looks to streamline Qinlock-related commercial operations in the US while concentrating only on a ‘select number of key European markets.’
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The FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee has decided to cancel a planned meeting on Thursday to discuss two cancer drugs that previously won accelerated approvals but failed to confirm clinical benefit in required follow-up trials or have taken a long time to finish those trials.
The FDA said in a statement that the meeting ‘is no longer needed’ but did not offer further detail on why exactly it was canceled, telling Endpoints News to contact the companies. Attempts to contact both Secura Bio and Acrotech went unreturned. The companies may have decided to pull these treatments from the market, or they’ve come to new agreements with the agency on their confirmatory trials.
https://endpts.com/starting-from-scratch-viatris-new-brand-culture-settle-in-1-year-after-mylan-upjohn-merger/
