Calmer waters for FDA; Servier, Lilly deals — a BioCentury podcast

New leaders set tone at FDA; billion-dollar deals pace biopharma BD

FDA’s new leadership is sailing the agency into calmer waters amid a search for a permanent commissioner and permanent center directors. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury Washington Editor Steve Usdin discusses how FDA’s new, interim leaders have changed the tone at the agency and why they are putting medicines derailed under former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary back on track. Usdin also highlights FDA’s new real-time clinical trials initiative.

BioCentury’s analysts then turn to deals, including an analysis of the 20 deals Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE:LLY) has done this year; Servier’s move to expand in neurology via BD; and Monday’s billion-dollar deals by  Incyte Corp. (NASDAQ:INCY), which will acquire Vega Therapeutics Inc., and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), which is buying Firefly Bio Inc.

The team also discusses Grand Rounds U.S., held last week in Seattle, including the conference’s Rising Star prize winner Sylvain Simon of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.