Merck & the state of M&A, plus Novartis CEO Narasimhan’s call to action

BioCentury’s editors also discuss the implications of Catalyst’s win over FDA in court and the latest in translation

On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors discuss what Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE:MRK) hopes to gain from its pending $11.5 billion acquisition of Acceleron Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ:XLRN) and what the deal and others last week say indicate about the state of biopharma M&A. They also discuss the takeaways from BioCentury’s conversation with Novartis AG (SIX:NOVN; NYSE:NVS) CEO Vasant Narasimhan, a legal victory for Catalyst Biosciences Inc. (NASDAQ:CBIO) that will limit FDA’s ability to stretch the Orphan Drug Act to reduce drug prices, and the latest batch of translational papers in BioCentury’s Distillery.