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For months now, all signs have pointed to a looming, steep dropoff in pharmas’ spending on traditional TV advertising. One brand that seems not to have gotten the memo, however, is Johnson & Johnson’s Tremfya. J&J kicked off the new year with a bang, shelling out more than $78 million to air eight TV ads for Tremfya throughout January, increasing nearly 40% from its December total and again making it far and away the month’s top spender, according to data shared with Fierce Pharma Marketing by iSpot. That’s higher than any pharmaceutical brand’s single-month spending total for at least the last two years, iSpot confirmed to Fierce. Tremfya was also responsible for 2025’s highest monthly outlay, thanks to the nearly $63 million it spent airing commercials in October. Tremfya’s massive marketing investment drove the combined total for January’s top 10 TV drug ad spenders to new heights. Altogether, they threw $323.8 million behind their ads, quite a ways above the previous record of $307.1 million that was also set in October, suggesting that 2026 could echo a pattern set over the last two years in which a sky-high January is followed by a milder spring and summer before spending ratchets back up...

French drugmaker Sanofi ousted CEO Paul Hudson on ⁠Thursday, ⁠ending a six-year tenure marked by a stalled drive ⁠to replace blockbuster drugs going off patent and rising pressure from U.S. anti-vaccine policy and rhetoric. The company said it had appointed Belén Garijo, the head of German drugmaker Merck KGaA, as the new chief executive. The 65-year-old Spanish executive will take over in late April and would be Sanofi's first female CEO. Sanofi shares fell some 3.5% on Thursday, with some analysts pointing to Garijo's relatively low profile and mixed record at Merck. Brokerage Jefferies said in a note that she wasn't "on many shortlists as potential successor." "She has shown cost discipline at Merck, which is positive. ⁠However... she needs to ⁠improve her R&D track record," said Markus Manns, portfolio manager at Sanofi investor Union Investment, adding this was key for Garijo's future employer. "The CEO change at Sanofi is a sign that the R&D transformation has failed or is happening too slowly." Hudson, 58, who was pushed out only two months before his tenure was up for renewal, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. He had admitted on a call with analysts late last month that his plans had not...

U.S.-based Kailera Therapeutics and its partner Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals said on Tuesday their experimental oral obesity drug helped patients lose up to 12.1% body weight at 26 weeks in a mid-stage study in China. China-based Hengrui's trial was testing the once-daily drug, ribupatide, which belongs to the same GLP-1 class of treatments that include Eli Lilly's experimental pill, orforglipron, and Novo Nordisk's oral Wegovy. However, each drug uses a different approach to target GLP-1. U.S. drugmakers have been increasingly looking to China to secure the rights to promising drug candidates at a lower cost and access important early data that could pave the way for global trials. Besides the pill, the companies are also developing ribupatide as a once-weekly injectable version. The 166-participant study showed those given 10-milligram dose of the drug saw an average weight loss of 6.9%, compared with placebo. The mean weight loss was 12.1% for those on the 25- and 50-mg doses. Most side effects related to the drug such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, or constipation were mild to moderate, and none of the participants stopped treatment or reduced their dose, the companies said. Kailera Therapeutics was launched in October 2024 with $400 million in early-stage funding and four obesity drug...

Two new hospitals to add more than 250 beds to Aster’s current UAE capacity; existing hospital in Al Qusais to be expanded Dubai-based healthcare group Aster DM Healthcare has unveiled a 1 billion UAE dirhams ($367 million) expansion programme in the UAE, including two new hospitals and the expansion of an existing facility. Speaking to Zawya Projects on the sidelines of World Health Expo 2026, Alisha Moopen, Managing Director and Group CEO of Aster DM Healthcare, said the investment pipeline aligns with the Dubai Economic Agenda (D33) and focuses on expanding advanced care delivery through technology, specialised talent and integrated patient pathways. “Our AED 1 billion pipeline is not only about adding beds or infrastructure; it is about enabling world-class care pathways locally, supported by technology, specialised talent and a connected patient experience,” Moopen said. New hospitals in Dubai The expansion plan includes two new multi-specialty hospitals in Dubai, located in Studio City and Discovery Gardens, which will add more than 250 beds to Aster’s current 920-bed UAE capacity. Once operational, the new facilities are expected to serve over 560,000 additional patients annually and create more than 675 new healthcare jobs. Moopen said the Studio City hospital will operate under the Medcare brand and will serve...

Contract drug manufacturer OneSource Specialty Pharma received approval for its generic version of Ozempic in Saudi Arabia, clearing the path for selling the type-2 diabetes and weight-loss drug with its partner Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC. Hikma is OneSource’s exclusive commercialization partner for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The approval from the Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) will enable its entry into Saudi Arabia, one of the largest markets for Ozempic and other weight management/loss drugs. The exclusive partnership will help the company “capitalize on rising demand for this product” and underscores the ambition of both companies to increase access to high-quality affordable generic drug alternatives for patients across the region, OneSource said in a statement on Wednesday. Under the agreement, OneSource will manufacture and supply semaglutide from its facility in Bengaluru and Hikma will use its commercial reach and institutional relationships in the region to widen availability of the drug. “We are confident that collaborating with Hikma, the largest pharmaceutical company in the MENA region by sales, will give us a strong platform to scale access to this important therapy across both private and institutional customers,” chief executive officer and managing director Neeraj Sharma said in the statement. Global boom OneSource is gearing...

Eli Lilly has won Chinese regulators' approval for its drug to treat chronic inflammatory bowel disease, expanding the treatment's use to the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market, it said on Wednesday. The drug, mirikizumab, is authorised as a treatment for moderately-to-severely active Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, the U.S. drugmaker said in a statement on its official WeChat account. The decision marks its China branch's first approval for an innovative medicine in the digestive immunity field, according to the statement. The drug is already approved for treatment in several other countries, including the U.S. Lilly, which also sells drugs in China for other diseases, including Alzheimer's, diabetes and obesity, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on a launch date or costs. The ulcerative colitis therapy market in China will see "considerable growth" over the next decade, fueled by the launch and adoption of targeted medicines like Lilly's drug, according to Clarivate.

Novo ⁠Nordisk ⁠said on Wednesday ⁠it plans to launch its weight-loss pill Wegovy in vials. "We are exploring various device presentations for ⁠Wegovy, ⁠including vials - some are launching this year, others are coming in the future," the company said. Novo currently sells Wegovy in injectable and oral ⁠versions. Rival ⁠Eli Lilly started ⁠selling vials of the two lowest doses of its ⁠popular weight-loss drug Zepbound in 2024. Last year, Lilly cut the price for vials ⁠of Zepbound by $50 or more and expanded the ⁠range of doses sold online. Novo and Lilly are locked in a tightening fight in the obesity-drug market, with Novo trying to win back its crown after ⁠a bruising year in which Zepbound overtook Wegovy in U.S. prescriptions.

Privately held Iambic said on Monday it has entered a multi-year partnership worth more than $1.7 billion with Japan's Takeda Pharmaceutical (4502.T), opens new tab to use artificial intelligence to help design small-molecule drugs targeting cancer and gastrointestinal diseases. Under the agreement, Iambic will receive upfront payments and could earn more than $1.7 billion in development and commercial milestones, plus royalties on sales. The deal marks Takeda's latest move to embed artificial intelligence across its research operations, following a similar agreement with Nabla Bio last year focused on protein-based drugs. Drug developers are increasingly turning to AI technologies to speed up discovery and cut costs, with experts predicting timelines could be halved in coming years. Takeda will also gain access to NeuralPLexer, Iambic's model that predicts how drug molecules bind to proteins. Iambic Chief Executive Tom Miller told Reuters that understanding protein structure is critical in drug development. "If you don't know the shape of what you're trying to engage ... it's a lot like trying to make a sculpture in the dark," he said. Traditional drug discovery can take around six years before a compound reaches clinical trials. Iambic said its approach, combining AI predictions with automated laboratories, can compress that timeline to less than two...

Eli Lilly will buy Orna Therapeutics for up to $2.4 billion in cash, gaining access to a technology that allows patients' own cells to generate therapies inside the body, without the need to extract them. The deal, announced on Monday, is the latest in the flurry of transactions signed by the U.S. drugmaker over the last few months to diversify beyond obesity. Lilly shares were up more than 3% in morning trading. Orna is developing therapies that use a form of RNA called circular RNA, along with novel lipid nanoparticles. Its lead drug candidate, ORN-252, is in early stages of development. It is a type of treatment called chimeric antigen receptor T-cell, or CAR-T, targeting cells with a receptor called CD19. CAR-T therapies modify a patient's immune cells to recognize a specific target and destroy cancer cells. Drugmakers such as Bristol Myers Squibb, Gilead and Johnson & Johnson already offer CAR-T therapies to treat cancer, but most involve isolating the cells, altering and infusing them back into patients' bodies. Instead of modifying the cells in a lab, Orna aims to produce them "in vivo" or inside the body. Orna's platform has the potential to expand Lilly's capabilities in the oncology and immunology space, said BMO Capital...

Sanofi’s rilzabrutinib designated breakthrough therapy in the US and orphan drug in Japan for the treatment of warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia •Rilzabrutinib is the first and only investigational BTKi for warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia to be designated Breakthrough Therapy by the FDA •Rilzabrutinib helps address complex immune-system dysregulation through multi-immune modulation Rilzabrutinib holds global regulatory designations across multiple rare diseases, underscoring its broad therapeutic potential The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a designation as breakthrough therapy to Wayrilz (rilzabrutinib), a novel oral, reversible Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia (wAIHA), a rare autoimmune disorder marked by the destruction of red blood cells. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has also provided rilzabrutinib an orphan designation for the same condition. Both designations are based on clinical data from the ongoing LUMINA 2 phase 2b study (clinical study identifier: NCT05002777) assessing the efficacy and safety of rilzabrutinib for patients with wAIHA. In addition, the new LUMINA 3 phase 3 study (clinical study identifier: NCT07086976), is assessing rilzabrutinib compared with placebo in patients with wAIHA. There is currently no approved treatment that specifically targets the underlying cause of this rare autoimmune condition, which...