Gilead’s Arcellx buy. Plus: ctDNA as surrogate endpoint — a BioCentury podcast

And the latest from Washington: Takeaways from the PhRMA Forum and FDA’s Moderna U-turn

Gilead is acquiring Arcellx for $7.8 billion up front three years after forging a partnership with the biotech around a cell therapy for multiple myeloma. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts assess what the deal does for the Foster City, Calif.-based biotech’s pipeline.

The analysts also discuss the case for using ctDNA as a surrogate endpoint for early cancer trials.

Turning to Washington, Steve Usdin offers his takeaways from last week’s PhRMA Forum, which focused on China and the Trump administration’s most favored nation (MFN) drug pricing policy, and on the lessons that can be drawn from FDA’s about-face on the recent vaccine application from Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA).

Dig deeper into this week’s episode:

• Surrogate endpoints based on ctDNA will require standards, specificity
• China weighs on PhRMA Forum; Oz says industry could ‘own’ MFN legislation
• With $7.8B takeout, Gilead sees Arcellx’s cell therapy as competitive with J&J’s
• Learning from FDA’s Moderna U-turn