👋 Hey, let’s get into it. Mark Zuckerberg has officially entered his “what if we modeled all human biology?” era.

The Zuckerberg-backed Biohub just committed $500 million toward building massive AI-driven biological models capable of simulating how cells behave inside the human body. The bet is simple: more data plus more compute eventually equals predictive biology. The ambition is slightly less simple: accelerate cures for basically every major disease.

Silicon Valley already succeeded in disrupting media, transportation, and dating. Naturally, the next target is cellular function. Somewhere, a VC just funded ‘Uber for biotech.’

🛑 FDA Blocks Vaccine Safety Studies From Publication
FDA officials reportedly blocked publication of several internally conducted studies examining the safety of Covid-19 and shingles vaccines, despite the analyses finding serious side effects to be extremely rare. Agency scientists reviewed millions of patient records using public funding and reportedly found few meaningful safety concerns tied to vaccination. One study identified elevated anaphylaxis risk linked to Pfizer’s Comirnaty, but researchers found no other statistically significant increases across 14 monitored outcomes. HHS defended the decision, saying the withdrawn studies drew conclusions unsupported by the underlying data. Critics argue suppressing reassuring vaccine findings only further inflames public distrust around immunization.

👁️ Bayer Makes a $2.45B Eye Disease Bet on Perfuse
Bayer agreed to acquire Perfuse Therapeutics for $300 million upfront plus up to $2.15 billion in milestones, adding a promising ophthalmology asset to its pipeline. The biotech’s lead program, PER-001, is an intravitreal implant targeting endothelin signaling to improve retinal blood flow and reduce cell death in diseases like glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. Mid-stage data last year linked the therapy to improved patient outcomes, helping put the company on acquisition radars. Bayer already markets Eylea in Europe through its Regeneron partnership, making retinal disease one of the company’s most commercially important franchises. Apparently Bayer looked at ophthalmology and decided it still sees opportunity.

🏭 Lilly Adds Another $4.5B to Its Indiana Manufacturing Empire
Eli Lilly is investing another $4.5 billion into its Lebanon, Indiana manufacturing complex, pushing the company’s total U.S. manufacturing commitments this decade beyond $50 billion. The site will produce active pharmaceutical ingredients for Mounjaro and Zepbound while also supporting manufacturing for oral obesity pill Foundayo and pipeline candidate retatrutide. Lilly says the Lebanon API facility will become the largest of its kind in the United States. More than $21 billion of Lilly’s manufacturing expansion has now been concentrated in Indiana alone. At this point, Lilly is not just building factories. It’s building a metabolic industrial complex.

💰 GSK Signs $1B China Obesity Deal With SiranBio
GSK struck a deal worth up to $1 billion with China’s SiranBio for rights outside Greater China to SA030, an oligonucleotide therapy targeting ALK7. The British pharma will pay $55 million upfront for the phase 1 obesity and cardiometabolic candidate, which aims to reduce abdominal fat while preserving lean mass. Researchers believe targeting ALK7 could also improve insulin sensitivity and reduce inflammation tied to obesity-related disease. The therapy uses adipocyte-targeted delivery with low-frequency dosing, a combination GSK clearly sees as commercially attractive. Obesity drug gold rush status: confirmed.

🧪 Madrigal Expands Its MASH Ambitions With $1B Arrowhead Deal
Madrigal licensed Arrowhead’s ARO-PNPLA3 in a deal worth up to $1 billion, including $25 million upfront and nearly $975 million in milestone payments. The RNAi therapy targets a genetic driver of MASH progression and reduced liver fat by 46% after a single dose in early-stage testing. The asset was previously returned by Johnson & Johnson during a pipeline restructuring, but Madrigal clearly sees untapped potential. Fresh off launching Rezdiffra, the first FDA-approved MASH treatment, the company continues rapidly building out a broader liver disease pipeline.

👎 Pfizer’s $2.3B Trillium Acquisition Officially Flatlines
Pfizer abandoned its final remaining CD47 program, ending all clinical hopes tied to its expensive 2021 Trillium acquisition.

✂️ BioNTech Slashes 1,860 Jobs in Manufacturing Retreat
Shrinking Covid vaccine demand is forcing BioNTech to shut multiple sites and refocus aggressively on oncology programs.

🚀 Avalo Stock Jumps 40% After Skin Disease Phase 2 Win
Shares surged after hidradenitis suppurativa data cleared the trial’s primary endpoint despite strong placebo performance.

🤑 Axsome Thinks Auvelity Could Become an $8B Drug
Following FDA expansion into Alzheimer’s agitation, Axsome sharply boosted peak sales expectations for its antidepressant blockbuster hopeful.

💰 CellCentric Raises $220M and Starts IPO Conversations
The multiple myeloma biotech says fresh funding could support pivotal trials, registration efforts, and potentially a public offering.

❌ Gilead Cuts 192 Jobs Following Its Arcellx Buyout
Layoffs across California and Maryland begin this summer as Gilead consolidates operations after its $7.8 billion acquisition.

❤️ Cytokinetics Moves Toward First-in-Class Heart Disease Approval
Positive phase 3 data positions aficamten as a potential first approved therapy for non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Novo Nordisk finally gave investors something they have not seen in months: momentum.

The Danish drugmaker reported first-quarter sales of $15.2 billion, up 32% on a constant currency basis, while operating profit surged 65% to $6.4 billion. The company also raised full-year guidance, now expecting adjusted sales and operating profit declines of between 4% and 12%, slightly improved from prior forecasts.

But the real headline was oral Wegovy sales.

Novo said the obesity pill generated $354 million during its first quarter on the U.S. market, crushing analyst expectations of roughly $125 million. The company also revealed the pill drove approximately 1.3 million prescriptions during the quarter, helping shares climb as much as 8% Wednesday morning.

That early success matters because many investors assumed Eli Lilly would dominate obesity pills just like it overtook Novo in injectable GLP-1s. Instead, Novo grabbed the early lead. CEO Mike Doustdar said Wegovy now commands roughly 65% of all new U.S. obesity prescriptions, calling the launch a “turnaround situation.”

Importantly, Novo says pills are complementing injections rather than cannibalizing them. Injectable Wegovy sales still rose 12% year over year to $1.9 billion, while the broader obesity franchise grew 22% on an adjusted constant currency basis.

Novo’s advantage may simply come down to branding. Patients already know Wegovy. Physicians already prescribe Wegovy. Lilly’s Foundayo, despite strong buzz, is still introducing an entirely new name and molecule to the market. Lilly CEO David Ricks recently warned adoption would take “quarters, not days.”

The irony is brutal for Wall Street expectations. Novo lost injectable leadership to Lilly, but may have landed first in oral obesity. Suddenly the “Novo is falling behind” narrative looks a little less certain.

That’s the projected decade-long savings tied to the Trump administration’s “Most Favored Nation” drug pricing framework involving 17 pharma companies. The White House says savings could climb even higher using newer launch cohorts. One small detail: the actual terms of the agreements between the administration and participating pharma companies have not been publicly disclosed.

Here’s what biotech Redditors are talking about:

😓 “I’m Giving Up on This Career.”
A bioinformatics graduate posted this after 250+ applications, eight months unemployed, and only a handful of serious interviews. The replies painted a bleak biotech hiring landscape. Some users blamed oversaturation and credential inflation as PhDs increasingly dominate computational biology roles. Others pointed to AI tools reducing demand for general bioinformatics tasks. Hard to “break into industry” when industry keeps shrinking the entry door.

😬 Bio-Rad Recruiters… You Okay?
One Redditor shared a rejection email that accidentally included the recruiter’s unfinished AI prompt, complete with placeholders like “insert kind words here.” Even worse, multiple commenters claimed they had received similar broken rejection templates from the company before. Nothing boosts applicant confidence quite like realizing your rejection email still needed editing before being sent. Maybe they want you to write your own rejection email?

🐒 Congress Wants Fewer Research Monkeys Crossing Borders
The bipartisan PRIMATE Act would ban primate imports for U.S. research amid growing pathogen and biosecurity concerns.

🇺🇸 Biotech Leaders Launch New Industry Alliance
The American Biotech Innovation Alliance debuted with 21 founding organizations pushing for a coordinated national biotech strategy.

🕒 FDA Experiments With One-Day Inspections
The agency’s new pilot program uses shorter targeted assessments to stretch inspection resources more efficiently across regulated industries.

🤖 Sanofi Expands Toronto AI Hub With $294M Investment
The pharma giant plans to add high-skilled AI and data science jobs while scaling digital infrastructure capabilities in Canada.

🧑‍🚀 BioOrbit Wants to Manufacture Cancer Drugs… in Space
BioOrbit raised $13.2 million in what the company says is the largest seed round ever for in-space manufacturing. The startup believes microgravity can dramatically improve protein crystallization, helping create ultra-high-concentration antibody therapies that are easier to inject at home instead of inside hospitals. Founders Katie King and Leonor Teles say the long-term goal is building an orbital pharmaceutical factory within the next decade. During fundraising, someone definitely said: “Okay hear me out… drug manufacturing, but in space.”

♻️ May 7, 2004 — Scientists Officially Name the Tiny Plastic Problem
Marine biologist Richard Thompson helped introduce the term “microplastics” in a landmark Science paper documenting microscopic plastic debris across oceans and coastlines. At the time, the discovery sounded like a niche environmental concern. Two decades later, microplastics have been detected in drinking water, seafood, human blood, and even placentas. Sometimes the scariest scientific discoveries are the ones small enough to initially ignore.

At this point, if your biotech startup is struggling to raise money, just add “in space” to the pitch deck. “We’re discovering AI-designed obesity drugs… in space” probably gets you a $4 billion valuation before the second slide.

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

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