👋 Hey, let’s get into it. Lilly’s GLP-1 cash register is still ringing, and this time the company has gone shopping in the immunology aisle with a deal worth up to $2.875 billion.

The target is Merida Biosciences, marking the 13th company Lilly has agreed to buy in 2026. But who’s counting?

So what is Lilly getting? Merida’s Phase 1 lead drug, MER511, is designed to clear the autoantibodies driving Graves disease and thyroid eye disease without broadly suppressing normal immunity.

The mechanism is clever, but the evidence is still early. Lilly isn’t buying a finished medicine. It’s buying a very expensive autoantibody delete key.

❌ BioNTech Ends Colorectal Cancer Vaccine Trial, Shares Fall 8%
Just days after Moderna delivered a Phase 3 cancer-vaccine win, BioNTech supplied the reminder that this field is still biotech. The company terminated a Phase 2 trial of personalized mRNA vaccine autogene cevumeran in colorectal cancer after an independent monitor flagged a numerical survival imbalance and concluded more follow-up was unlikely to rescue the study. Shares fell about 8% Friday. BioNTech reported no new safety signal and released too little data to say the vaccine caused the imbalance. A separate pancreatic-cancer trial combining the vaccine with immunotherapy and chemotherapy is still running.

❤️ FDA Adds Cardiovascular Risk Reduction to Lilly’s Mounjaro Label
The FDA expanded Mounjaro’s label to reduce the risk of cardiovascular death, heart attack, and stroke in adults with type 2 diabetes at high cardiovascular risk. The 13,299-person SURPASS-CVOT trial compared tirzepatide with Trulicity, a GLP-1 drug already proven to protect the heart, over a median four years. Mounjaro kept pace with Trulicity, and the numbers leaned slightly in its favor, but not enough to prove it offered better heart protection. Still, the blockbuster added a heart badge to an already stellar résumé.

💰 Genentech Puts $45M Upfront Into DualityBio ADC Deal With $1B+ Potential
Genentech is paying DualityBio $45 million upfront to build antibody-drug conjugates with payloads designed for tumors that resist today’s topoisomerase I-based ADCs. DualityBio will handle discovery and early development through Phase 1a before Genentech takes over worldwide development and commercialization. More than $1 billion in milestones and tiered royalties could follow, but only the upfront check is guaranteed. No targets, candidates, or timelines were disclosed. Consider it a bet on the next ADC problem: what to give patients after tumors have already learned the current payload playbook.

💊 FDA Approves Gilead’s Bixlenvo to Replace Complex HIV Regimens
FDA approved Bixlenvo, Gilead’s once-daily bictegravir-lenacapavir tablet, for adults with HIV who are already virologically suppressed and have no known or suspected resistance to either component. In Phase 3, patients switching to Bixlenvo maintained viral suppression through 48 weeks despite entering the study on regimens of two to 11 pills per day. The catch is a two-day oral Sunlenca loading sequence before Bixlenvo continues alone. For long-treated patients carrying decades of resistance and pill burden, the pill organizer just lost most of its tenants.

🩸 PharmaEssentia’s Besremi Ends a Nearly 30-Year FDA Drought in Essential Thrombocythemia
Besremi delivered durable responses in 37.4% versus 3.6% with anagrelide, giving patients with the rare blood cancer a new option.

⚠️ J&J’s Abiomed Impella Controller Problem Linked to 37 Injuries and Three Deaths
Abiomed began a phased global replacement after some controllers failed to recognize installed purge cassettes, potentially interrupting critical circulatory support.

✅ FDA Approves Takeda and Protagonist’s Mimrylo for Polycythemia Vera, a Rare Blood Cancer
By limiting iron for red-cell production, the first hepcidin mimetic helped 76.9% of patients avoid regular blood draws versus 32.9% on placebo in Phase 3.

💉 FDA Approves XFG-Adapted COVID Vaccines for the 2026–27 Season
The updated Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech, and Novavax-Sanofi shots target the XFG coronavirus variant and roll out this fall, with eligibility varying by product and risk.

🫁 AstraZeneca and Amgen’s Tezspire Hits Both Phase 3 Goals in Eosinophilic Esophagitis
The asthma drug improved esophageal inflammation and swallowing symptoms versus placebo, offering a sizeable label-extension opportunity.

⚖️ BioXcel Files Chapter 11 With Teva’s Asset Bid Worth Up to $125M
Teva’s opening offer includes $57.5 million at closing and up to $67.5 million in milestones, while competing bids may still emerge.

💊 FDA Approves Priovant’s Lisraya as First Oral Treatment for Adult Dermatomyositis
The Roivant-backed JAK1/TYK2 inhibitor improved muscle, skin, and function measures in Phase 3. It has a $35,000 monthly list price.

💰 AusperBio Raises $120M to Carry Hepatitis B Drug Through Phase 3
AusperBio has now raised $360 million since 2024 to advance AHB-137 through a China-based Phase 3.

The European Society of Cardiology Congress ran August 28–31 in Munich, Germany, and wrapped up yesterday. Everyone calls it ESC. Accurate? Yes. Interesting? Absolutely not. So we’re calling it Cardio Con. In a nutshell, there were four meaningful wins, two expensive misses, and enough endpoints to give a statistician palpitations.

The strongest result came from TRIC-I-HF. Among 360 older, high-risk patients with severe tricuspid regurgitation, 52.4% receiving transcatheter repair were alive without a heart-failure hospitalization at three years, versus 21.0% on medical therapy alone. The study ran at experienced German centers and mostly used edge-to-edge repair, so the result should not be stretched to every device or operator.

STAREE asked a more familiar question: should relatively healthy adults over 70 start a statin? Over 5.9 years, atorvastatin cut first major cardiovascular events from 8.3% to 6.0%, but did not significantly improve disability-free survival. A useful win, just narrower than the 30% relative-risk headline suggests.

Arrowhead’s quarterly plozasiran cut triglycerides around 80% across SHASTA-3 and SHASTA-4 and reduced adjudicated pancreatitis 78% in a pooled analysis. The absolute difference was 4.1 points, while worsening glycemic control appeared more often on drug.

Cytokinetics also scored the first positive Phase 3 trial in nonobstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Aficamten improved symptoms and exercise capacity, but ejection fraction below 50% occurred in 10.5% versus 0.8% on placebo. The benefit arrived with an echocardiogram attached.

Then came the mechanism-versus-outcomes reminders. In 14,194 post-acute-coronary-syndrome patients, milvexian produced the expected anticoagulant effect but failed to reduce cardiovascular events, with rates of 5.4% versus 5.1% on placebo.

Wainua lowered transthyretin in amyloid cardiomyopathy but missed its primary cardiovascular endpoint, including among patients already taking stabilizers.

Neither result kills the broader programs, but they do reinforce ESC’s least glamorous lesson: biomarkers are persuasive until hard outcomes vote.

That is the share of biopharma job seekers facing long-term unemployment who have stopped searching for industry work, while almost as many are considering it, according to BioSpace. The poll is self-selected, but suggests burnout is becoming an exit ramp.

Here’s what biotech Redditors are talking about:

🪑 Lab Workers Demand Freedom for the Kick Stool
One r/biotech poster demanded freedom for the rolling kick stool after their lab deemed it unsafe. The comments quickly became an inventory of seemingly harmless equipment other labs had also placed on the naughty list: scissors, self-poured gels, and Bunsen burners. Someone blamed “big premade gel,” naturally. The serious question is whether the rules prevent injuries or just inspire more creative workarounds. Then again, maybe scientists are simply clumsy.

📄 The Resume Typo That Tripled Someone’s Experience
A biotech job seeker landed an interview, then noticed their résumé claimed 17 months of lab experience instead of five after listing January 2025 rather than January 2026. Reddit’s consensus was refreshingly simple: email the correction before the interview, own the typo, and move on. One commenter disclosed a similar mistake during an interview, got the job, and later learned the panel appreciated the honesty. Accuracy remains undefeated.

🗺️ Scientists Build the Largest Molecular Map of Autism
A UCSF-led team connected 100 autism-risk genes to 1,800-plus protein interactions, exposing molecular complexes and potential drug targets.

💸 Gates Foundation Commits Up to $35M to Tackle a Life-Threatening Pregnancy Disorder
ProFound gets $20 million upfront to hunt biomarkers and drug targets for preeclampsia, with another $15 million tied to research milestones.

🧬 Engineered tRNA Restores Cystic Fibrosis Protein Function for 40+ Days
The preclinical treatment helped cells bypass premature stop mutations in airway models and patient-derived organoids, restoring protein function where Trikafta alone failed.

🩸 Generation Lab Says Two Mystery Drugs Can Make Blood Younger
Generation Lab is promoting 1-Generation, a weekly injectable combination of two existing drugs that it says can make blood biologically younger. The scientific pedigree of the company is real: co-founder Irina Conboy is respected for aging research involving blood exchange and plasma dilution. The product evidence is not there yet. Its ingredients and doses remain undisclosed, early improvements are anecdotes, and no peer-reviewed controlled human efficacy data are available. A study of more than 100 people is planned. Until then, the ingredients are secret and the evidence column is still blank.

🦖 September 1, 1988: The Scientist Who Helped Solve the Dinosaur Murder Mystery Dies
On this day in 1988, physicist Luis Alvarez died at 77. Alvarez won the 1968 Nobel Prize for particle-physics work, then helped tackle a much older mystery. In 1980, he, his geologist son Walter, Frank Asaro, and Helen Michel proposed that an asteroid impact wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs after finding an iridium-rich boundary layer. Chicxulub was identified later, strengthening their case. Nothing says interdisciplinary science quite like a particle physicist showing up to solve a 66-million-year-old murder.

Generation Lab says two mystery drugs can make your blood younger. Until it reveals what they are, I’ll stick with the less mysterious anti-aging protocol: sunscreen, sleep, and resisting the urge to tell younger coworkers that I remember when texting wasn’t an option and we had to call people…like animals.

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

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