👋 Good morning! The vaccine policy fight just left the group chat and entered a federal courtroom.

A coalition of 15 Democrat-led states has filed suit against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, arguing that the recent overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule was unlawful and scientifically unsupported. At the center of the complaint is the gutting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the long-standing expert panel that guides U.S. vaccine recommendations.

Two months ago, the CDC removed seven vaccines from its universal recommendation list, including flu, COVID, rotavirus, meningitis, hepatitis A and B. They can still be given, but only after consultation with a healthcare specialist. RSV immunization is now limited to high-risk infants or those whose mothers were not vaccinated.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong did not mince words, calling the overhaul “radical and unlawful.” New Jersey’s acting AG echoed the sentiment, arguing the move replaces established experts with what critics describe as a rogue panel.

The states are asking a San Francisco judge to overturn the new schedule. Meanwhile, the broader biotech industry is watching closely. Vaccine policy in America just became a live legal experiment.

🏭 Novartis Expands $23B US Blitz With Texas Radiopharma Plant
Novartis is adding another dot to its radiopharmaceutical map, unveiling plans for a 46,000-square-foot radioligand therapy facility in Denton, Texas. The plant becomes the fifth US radiopharma site in its network and is expected to come online in 2028. Because radioisotopes start decaying the moment they are made, proximity to patients is everything. Novartis sells Lutathera and Pluvicto and is racing to ensure supply keeps pace with demand. The ticking clock is now a construction deadline.

💸 Pfizer Pays Up to $495M for China GLP-1 Play
Pfizer is buying exclusive commercialization rights in Mainland China to Sciwind’s approved GLP-1, ecnoglutide, in a deal worth up to $495 million. Sciwind keeps manufacturing and R&D control while Pfizer gets an immediate foothold in the Chinese type 2 diabetes market. Obesity approval could follow. As Pfizer rebuilds its metabolic ambitions, it is not waiting for internal assets alone to deliver.

💰 GSK Spends $950M on PAH Bet and $1B on siRNA Pipeline
GSK dropped $950 million in cash to acquire 35Pharma and its PAH candidate HS235, which targets the same activin pathway as Merck’s Winrevair but aims to reduce bleeding risk. In parallel, GSK paid $40 million upfront to China’s Frontier Biotechnologies for two siRNA assets in a deal worth up to $963 million in milestones. New CEO Luke Miels promised “smart business development.” The checkbook agrees.

🤝 Astellas and Vir Strike $1.7B Prostate Cancer Pact
Astellas Pharma is partnering with Vir Biotechnology on a PSMA-targeted T-cell engager worth up to $1.7 billion. Vir pockets $335 million upfront and near-term capital, including a premium equity investment. The bispecific uses a dual-masking technology designed to activate only inside tumors. In the U.S., Vir can co-promote. Outside the U.S., Astellas takes the wheel.

💸 Harbour Spins Out $1.1B Biobucks Oncology Play
Harbour BioMed licensed its anti-CTLA-4 antibody HBM4003 to newly formed Solstice Oncology in a deal worth up to $1.1 billion. Harbour gets $105 million upfront plus equity and royalties outside Greater China. Solstice gets a clinical-stage oncology asset with heavy-chain antibody tech behind it. Newco energy meets old-school checkpoint biology.

🤝 Midsized Biotechs Unite Against MFN.
Ten companies including Acadia and Madrigal formed the Midsized Biotech Alliance of America to fight the Trump administration’s Most Favored Nation drug pricing policy, warning it could wipe them off the map.

📈 MiniMed Eyes $784M IPO.
Medtronic’s spun-out diabetes unit plans to raise up to $784 million at a valuation approaching $7.9 billion under the ticker MMED.

🧬 Pfizer Reenters Gene Editing With Beam.
Pfizer exercised its option for global rights to a liver-targeted base editing candidate from Beam Therapeutics, less than a year after exiting gene therapy.

💵 Charles River Sells Off CDMO Arm.
Charles River Laboratories is divesting manufacturing and discovery assets to GI Partners and IQVIA as part of a strategic pivot.

🏭 AbbVie Adds $380M to US Manufacturing.
AbbVie will build two new API plants in North Chicago, creating 300 jobs and leaning into AI-powered production.

📉 Protara’s Bladder Cancer CR Rate Slides.
Protara Therapeutics reported a 66% six-month response rate that fell to 33% at 12 months, sending shares down in premarket trading.

☹️ BioMarin Pulls Roctavian.
BioMarin Pharmaceutical is withdrawing its hemophilia gene therapy after failing to find a buyer, taking roughly $240 million in charges.

Novo Nordisk is throwing everything at the obesity playbook. Price cuts. New pills. Next-gen delivery tech. Triple agonists. All while Eli Lilly and Company sits comfortably at a ~$1 trillion valuation.

First, the price card. Novo will slash the US list price of Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus to $675 per month starting in 2027. That is a 50% cut for Wegovy and 35% for Ozempic. The timing aligns with IRA-driven Medicare price changes. Analysts note most prescriptions now flow through cash-pay channels unaffected by list prices, so the practical impact may be limited. Still, symbolism matters.

Second, the pipeline shuffle. Days after CagriSema disappointed, Novo highlighted phase 2 data in China showing nearly 20% weight loss with its triple agonist UBT251 at 24 weeks. Investors shrugged. Shares continued to slide, and Novo’s market cap has fallen below $200 billion, back to pre-Wegovy levels.

Third, the tech bet. Novo inked a deal worth up to $2.1 billion with Vivtex, a spinout from biotech legend Robert Langer’s lab, to push oral biologics forward. Lilly is advancing its own oral contender, orforglipron, and has already manufactured $1.5 billion worth ahead of a potential launch.

This is what a market share war looks like at scale. Novo had the head start. Lilly brought the higher-efficacy drug. Now Novo is cutting prices, upgrading tech and reshuffling the pipeline to claw back momentum. The obesity era is no longer about who arrived first. It is about who evolves fastest.

That’s how much average upfront payments have increased in licensing deals between Western biopharmas and Chinese biotech companies since 2022. Rising from $52M to $172M this year. Deal volume has doubled. Total upfront values have quadrupled. China isn’t the bargain bin anymore. It’s where competitive auctions are happening.

Here’s what biotech Redditors are talking about:

😩 Is a PhD even worth it anymore?
One Redditor vented about the biotech job market demanding a PhD, five years of experience, 40 assay skills, relocation flexibility and offering $27 per hour contracts in return. Some commenters said wet lab roles are always first on the chopping block and suggested pivoting into computational or regulatory work. Others pointed out the trap of hyper-specialization. In the AI era, maybe the generalist wins.

🇺🇸 Defund science, then ask why it’s slow?!
Reacting to warnings that the U.S. is losing ground to China in early drug development, Redditors argued you cannot fire regulators, trim budgets and expect faster approvals. Some agreed clinical trial red tape is the real bottleneck. Others said China simply invested consistently for decades while the U.S. debated. Long-term strategy beats short-term outrage.

💰 AstraZeneca CEO Pay Climbs to $23.9M.
AstraZeneca rewarded CEO Pascal Soriot with a 6.4% pay bump amid geopolitical turbulence.

👩‍⚖️ Novartis Settles Henrietta Lacks Case.
Novartis reached a confidential settlement with the estate of Henrietta Lacks over use of her cells in research.

🧛‍♂️ ARPA-H Funds $144M Anti-Aging Push.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is backing seven teams to build a new healthspan industry under its PROSPR initiative.

🤖 Evinova Expands AI Trial Network.
AstraZeneca, Astellas Pharma and Bristol Myers Squibb are deploying Evinova’s AI-native platform to speed global clinical development.

🧠 Slate Medicines Bets $130M on Migraine Moonshot
Raleigh-based Slate Medicines closed a $130 million Series A to advance SLTE-1009, an anti-PACAP antibody licensed from DartsBio, into Phase 1 in 2026. The target is distinct from CGRP drugs, and prior PACAP programs at Lilly and Amgen failed to advance. Slate is betting improved engineering and dosing can succeed where earlier attempts stalled.

🔭 February 26, 1616 — Galileo Is Silenced
Galileo Galilei was formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church from teaching heliocentrism, the idea that Earth orbits the sun. He recanted under pressure and spent the final years of his life under house arrest. The Church officially corrected itself in 1992. Science can win. Sometimes it just takes a few centuries.

If Galileo were launching a GLP-1 today, he might advise: build the data, ignore the noise and be prepared for a very long orbit before consensus arrives.

In other words, hang in there Novo.

That’s all for today. See you Tuesday for the next issue. 👋

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