At least 25 venture firms have raised a total of more than $17 billion in funds this year, with Forbion unveiling the largest-ever European biopharma fund at €1.2 billion last week. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors discuss how Forbion deployed its prior fund and quickly raised fresh funds and what that — and other funds — say about the state of financing private biotechs in Europe and elsewhere.
The editors then assess takeaways from BioCentury’s conversation with NIH’s Daniel Reich on data that could shape drug development’s future for progressive multiple sclerosis, and neurodegeneration broadly, as well as how the first clinical data from an RNA-editing oligonucleotide therapy from Wave Life Sciences demonstrate that it’s possible to change a single base in an RNA to correct a disease-causing mutation in patients.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653924

00:00 - Introduction
02:48 - VC Funds
11:50 - New Chapter for MS
23:48 - Wave's Data

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at [email protected].

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There is a growing mandate among researchers and VCs to provide proof of causal human biology for new targets. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors discuss the different strategies being deployed to identify causal links to disease using observational patient data or human cell models, including the challenges that come with each approach and the various computational methodologies companies are using.
They also discuss the outcome of FDA’s advisory committee meeting on Barth syndrome candidate elamipretide from Stealth Biotherapeutics, and the implications of the discussion for review of ultrarare disease therapies more broadly.
Diving into the deal of the day, the editors review the proposal by H. Lundbeck to acquire Longboard Pharmaceuticals for $2.6 billion, and discuss how the biotech’s therapy for developmental epilepsies may stack up against competitors.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653843

00:00 - Introduction
00:34 - Causal Biology and Big Data
17:52 - FDA's Ultra-Rare Decision
27:29 - Lundbeck Acquires Longboard

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at [email protected].

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Biopharma buysiders and bankers at long last believe the conditions are ripe for biotech growth and outperformance, BioCentury’s Stephen Hansen says on the latest BioCentury This Week podcast. Hansen and colleagues take stock of the sector’s growth potential after three long years of the bear market as they discuss BioCentury’s 4Q24 Public Markets Preview.
Also on this week’s show, Washington Editor Steve Usdin discusses his Editor’s Commentary, in which he argues that FDA leaders planned reforms for its advisory committee process fall far short of what they need to do.
Usdin then delivers takeaways from the most recent edition of BioCentury This Week’s sister podcast, The BioCentury Show, which features a behind-the-scenes look at CMS’s anti-amyloid mAb decision-making process with Lee Fleisher, the former CMO of the agency.
Finally, BioCentury’s Josh Berlin joins the podcast to preview the eleventh annual BioCentury-BayHelix China Healthcare Summit, which runs Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 in Shanghai. The theme of this year’s conference, which features panels of pharma BD&L leaders and blue chip investors as well as a lineup of presenting companies, is reinventing your China strategy.

00:00 - Introduction
02:13 - 4Q Public Markets Preview
16:16 - What's on at the China Summit
28:25 - Fixing FDA's Advisory Panels
34:09 - Recap: The BioCentury Show with Lee Fleisher

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653793

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at [email protected].

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Approval of BMS’s first-in-class schizophrenia drug is good news for patients and the company’s thinning pipeline alike, but maximizing Cobenfy’s commercial potential depends on readouts in additional indications. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors assess the significance of the new therapy and what the pharma needs to do to make its launch a success.
They also discuss the impact of the withdrawal of Pfizer's sickle cell therapy; the work left unfinished on biotech-related legislation in Congress; BioAge's NASDAQ IPO; and the importance of FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee meeting on the use of PD-1 inhibitors in patients with certain tumors expressing low levels of PD-L1. This episode of BioCentury This Week was sponsored by Parexel Biotech.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653732

00:01 - Sponsor Message: Parexel BioTech
01:41 - BMS Schizophrenia Drug
12:28 - Pfizer Withdrawal's Oxbryta
18:26 - ODAC and PDL1
23:56 - D.C. Update
26:51 - BioAge IPO

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at [email protected].

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The ESMO Congress yielded another win for cancer immunotherapy target TIGIT, but the readout resurfaced worries about the mechanism’s past failures to turn positive earlier stage data into Phase III success. On a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors deliver their takeaways from this year’s meeting, including analysis of data for TIGIT blocker belrestotug from iTeos Therapeutics, a colorectal cancer readout featuring J&J's Rybrevant and an antibody-drug conjugate from Genmab. The BioCentury team is joined by Gwyn Bebb, who is global franchise head for oncology at podcast sponsor Parexel. Bebb discusses what’s changed in the oncology landscape in the 10 years since the approval of the first immunotherapies, observations that COVID-19 vaccines might have a role in treating cancer and developments in the radiopharma field. This episode of BioCentury This Week was sponsored by Parexel Biotech.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653681

00:01 - Sponsor Message: Parexel BioTech
01:55 - iTeos' TIGIT Data
04:56 - Rybrevant Colorectal
07:22 - Gwyn Bebb's Take
21:38 - More ESMO Highlights

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at [email protected].

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Rep. Frank Pallone’s misunderstanding of how the pediatric priority review voucher program works has been one factor undermining support for an incentive that brings new drugs to kids, argues Washington Editor Steve Usdin on the latest BioCentury This Week podcast. Usdin explains how the voucher process works and why it’s valuable to the country’s youngest patients, as well as to small biotechs and larger biopharma alike.
Usdin also discusses the latest twists and turns for the Biosecure Act, and BioCentury’s Stephen Hansen assesses the obesity data from Novo Nordisk that destroyed more than $30 billion in value for the Danish pharma. This episode of BioCentury This Week was sponsored by Parexel Biotech.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653633

00:01 - Sponsor Message: Parexel Biotech
01:47 - Pediatric PRVs
06:42 - Biosecure Act
12:44 - Novo's Obesity Miss

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at [email protected].

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On a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors deliver their takeaways from the debut Grand Rounds conference, which focused on whether biotech can write a more successful playbook for translating from target to product. Weaving together takeaways from the panels, fireside chat and keynote at the conference, the editors assess the tensions between generalizability and fit-for-purpose models, between having control and capturing complexity, and, in human data, between scale and robustness/reliability, particularly for longitudinal readouts. The editors also discuss BioCentury's Q&A with USC Keck School’s Patrick Lyden, who explained how high-quality, reproducible preclinical science can be feasible.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653631

00:00 - Introduction
02:56 - Generalizability vs. Fit for Purpose
10:03 - Control vs. Complexity
17:57 - Scale vs. Robustness in Human Data
26:25 - Hypothesis-Driven vs. Unbiased Research
28:50 - Grand Rounds 2025


To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at [email protected].

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On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors assess the shifting market for biotech IPOs, including the profiles of the three companies that went public on NASDAQ last week, the aftermarket performance of the year's IPO class, and the prospects for more companies to make their own debut in the coming months. BioCentury’s editors also discuss whether the rush to GLP-1s for obesity will mirror the development of PD-1s for cancer and the impact on biopharma of the recent mainstream expansion of AI. This episode of BioCentury This Week was sponsored by Parexel Biotech.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653538

00:01 - Sponsor Message: Parexel Biotech
01:30 - IPOs
10:56 - GLP-1 & Obesity
22:18 - AI & Biotech

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at [email protected].

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Will bispecifics be the drugs to dethrone cancer’s biggest blockbusters? Akeso is the latest company with a bispecific to impress in a head-to-head study, this one for non-small cell lung cancer. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors discuss the latest data from Akeso’s ivonescimab, a VEGFxPD-1 bispecific antibody that went up against Keytruda pembrolizumab in one of its largest indications, first-line non-small cell lung cancer.
The editors also discuss data from  Vaxcyte that the infectious disease company parlayed into the year’s largest follow-on financing and a new initiative by FDA veteran Janet Woodcock to bolster quality in biopharmas’ manufacturing. This episode of BioCentury This Week was sponsored by Parexel Biotech.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653507

00:01 - Sponsor Message: Parexel Biotech
01:39 - Akeso's Bispecific Challenge
08:22 - Vaxcyte Pneumococcal Vaccine
12:32 - Woodcock's Quality Initiative
14:48 - Recap: The BioCentury Show on Biosimilars

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In this year’s series of Back to School essays, BioCentury’s editors ask whether the era of human first, causal biology and personalized medicine can reshape drug discovery to solve the weakest link in biotech — translation to the clinic. On a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast, the three authors of BioCentury’s 32nd Back to School edition, Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn, Executive Editor Selina Koch, and Executive Director of Biopharma Intelligence Lauren Martz, discuss how industry can solve its biggest bottleneck.

The editors zero in on inflammation and immunology, specifically how immunoproteomics upstage genomics in I&I target discovery, and neurology, notably how neuroscience companies are reducing to practice the concept of human-first discovery. Finally, they discuss the thread that runs through it all — precision medicine — and how biomarkers can help validate targets while bringing precision medicine to I&I and neurology.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653485


00:00 - Introduction
01:32 - Introducing Back to School
10:42 - Validation Tools
14:50 - I&I
21:00 - Neurology
27:19 - Precision Medicine

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