BioCentury This Week – Details, episodes & analysis

Shaking up an underwhelming year for fresh biotech paper, a trio of biotechs filed to go public on NASDAQ last week. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors discuss the IPO filings by MBX and Massachusetts companies Zenas and Bicara. Washington Editor Steve Usdin returns to the podcast to provide updates on the Inflation Reduction and Biosecure acts, as well as the life sciences policies of presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. And Director of Biopharma Intelligence Karen Tkach Tuzman zeroes in on the latest trends among pharma’s deals with biotechs over the past 12 months and the latest start-up out of Versant Ventures, Borealis.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653354

00:00 - Introduction
01:48 - Biotech IPOs
12:48 - Washington Update
20:39 - Versant, Novartis Newco
24:34 - Pharma-Biotech Deal Trends

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Grand Rounds is an R&D meeting that represents BioCentury’s latest initiative to create new networks linking academic discoveries with translational skills and the investors who will finance them, BioCentury co-founder, President and CEO David Flores said on a special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast previewing the new conference. The meeting, on Sept. 9-11 in Nashville, focuses on whether biotech can write a more successful playbook for translating from target to product.
The podcast features three special guests who will be at the conference: McKinsey's Guang Yang, Candel Therapeutics' Paul Peter Tak, and Abby Trotter of Life Science Tennessee. There is still time to register for BioCentury Grand Rounds, which will take place Sept. 9-11 in Nashville. Network, partner and debate key bottlenecks in translation. See the conference website for more information.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/653324

00:00 - Introduction
00:13 - Spotlight Grand Rounds
02:03 - Conference Themes
08:40 - Nashville's Biotech Ecosystem
16:58 - Paul Peter Tak on I&I
25:22 - McKinsey Report Preview

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A biomarker breakthrough could shave years off the development of therapies for a group of devastating, progressive ultrarare diseases. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors discuss FDA’s agreement to allow biopharma companies to use a biomarker as the basis for accelerated approval of neuronal mucopolysaccharidoses therapies, which marks an important inflection point, both for MPS and rare diseases in general. The editors also assess FDA’s decision to grant full approval to and expand the label of Sarepta DMD gene therapy Elevidys delandistrogene moxeparvovec, igniting another controversy over the agency's decision-making; discuss how human genetics is promising to remove some of the risk from neurology drug development; and preview BioCentury’s new conference, Grand Rounds, which takes place in September in Nashville, at the interface of academia and industry. This week’s podcast is sponsored by Nxera Pharma.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/652789

00:01 - Sponsor Message: Nxera Pharma
02:05 - Introducing BioCentury's Grand Rounds
06:46 - An MPS Breakthrough
14:12 - Sarepta Approval

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CTAD data for lecanemab showed more definitively than any past readout that targeting β-amyloid can lead to clinical benefit for Alzheimer’s patients, but the field is still wrestling with its use as a surrogate endpoint, BioCentury Executive Editor Selina Koch said on the latest BioCentury This Week podcast. Koch and the BioCentury podcast team break down the implications of data from Eisai and Roche at last week’s Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease meeting and look ahead to what’s next for the field. BioCentury’s editors also discussed how proposed changes to the U.K.’s R&D tax credit scheme could hurt British biotechs and what regulatory heads of global biopharmas who are members of the Charles Forum are envisioning for the post-COVID regulatory environment.

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A model term sheet created by a consortium of academic institutions, VCs and law firms could reduce the negotiation time around life sciences start-ups for universities and VCs by 80%, Associate Editor Stephen Hansen said on the latest BioCentury This Week podcast. Hansen detailed how the consortium came together and what it hopes to accomplish. The BioCentury editors also discussed implications of CSL's decision to price the first hemophilia B gene therapy approved by FDA at $3.5 million, as well as an FDA-NCI study that could serve as prototype for streamlined pragmatic trials.

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There are clear indicators of the maturation of China’s biotech sector, although east and west biopharma leaders have diverging views on how easy cross-border investment will be going forward, BioCentury’s Editor-in-Chief Simone Fishburn said on the latest BioCentury This Week podcast. Fishburn detailed her takeaways from the summit held last week, while Executive Editor Selina Koch reviewed her panel on the optimism R&D leaders have for the future role multi-omics can play in drug development. BioCentury editors also discussed the recent appointments of Chris Viehbacher as CEO of Biogen and David Epstein of Seagen and the challenges each face at their respective embattled biotechs.

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As China’s biopharma companies experience their first “biotech winter,” they should be engaged in active portfolio management, stopping projects that will not meet their investors’ expectations, Agio Capital General Manager Henk Joos said on BioCentury This Week. On a special East-West Summit edition of the podcast, Joos and Immune-Onc Therapeutics founder and CEO Charlene Liao discussed pipeline prioritization and other company survival tactics during today’s difficult financing environment.

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Cash conversation and sticking to priorities are essential for China’s biotech’s as they navigate today’s gloomy funding environment, Zhaoke Ophthalmology’s Lisa Feng said on a special East-West Summit edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast. Feng, who is CBO and CFO of Zhaoke, Jones Day’s Tony Chen and Paul Hastings’ Phoebe Yan discuss challenges of compliance risk in a digital world, China’s value-based procurement and IP landscape and the environment for IPOs and licensing deals for China’s biotechs.

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The lack of a “red wave” in the U.S. midterm elections sets up a “last gasp of old-fashioned, horse-trading politics” by lawmakers that could affect multiple pieces of life sciences legislation, Washington Editor Steve Usdin said on the latest BioCentury This Week podcast. Usdin details what’s at stake for biopharma in Washington during the remaining weeks of 2022, and what’s in store for life sciences in the next session of Congress. BioCentury’s editors also discuss trends at this year’s Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) conference and the latest from the Distillery, BioCentury’s summaries of top translational papers highlighting new targets and technologies with disease-modifying effects.

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 BIO needs to pick a leadership team rather than a leader to give the trade group all the skills it needs moving forward, Washington Editor Steve Usdin said on the latest BioCentury This Week podcast. Usdin and Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn discuss how BIO needs to address the challenges it now faces, as well as the results of BioCentury’s industry-wide survey on the state of the trade group.
BioCentury’s podcast team also assess the latest developments in RSV product development, the infectious disease pipelines of Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline, and top takeaways from Fishburn’s conversation on The BioCentury Show with Andy Plump, who is president of R&D at Takeda 

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