Author: Jason Brauner

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

Trends in biotech deals in 2022 and 2023: oncology vs. the rest

Summary After challenging conditions in 2022, deal-driven biotech spending appears to have picked up in 2023. To quantify this trend we have systematically reviewed deals announced during this period and examined differences based on therapeutic areas and stage of development. We find that (1) deal counts shrank in oncology compensated by growth in other TAs; (2) the decrease in number of oncology deals was largely driven by less appetite for earlier phase assets, whereas compensated growth in other TAs came from the same earlier stages of development, (3) across the

Read More

Trends and strategy in oncology development

PDF: Trends and strategy in oncology development Summary We review a sample of oncology programs from the past decade and arrive at the following key findings: The use of expansion cohorts in first-in-human (FIH) studies has grown significantly in the last decade, with an accompanying decrease in separate phase 2 studies Commercial-stage sponsors and early-stage companies backed by established VCs are much more aggressive in discontinuing programs quickly compared to other early-stage companies For drugs that achieve approval, the time from FIH to approval is much shorter for big pharma

Read More

An innovative sales strategy for a pivotal drug; Novartis trailblazes with Leqvio

After the $9.7B acquisition of The Medicines Company two and a half years ago, Novartis is eager to demonstrate value with a successful launch of the primary target of the deal, Leqvio. This launch is also a key catalyst for new revenue generation at Novartis, due to a $9B patent cliff by 2026. Given the high-stakes nature of Leqvio’s launch, the decision of the Swiss pharma to employ a non-traditional sales strategy in several key countries, including US and England, is noteworthy.   Novartis paves an innovative commercial path for

Read More

Looking into the crystal ball – What is in store for the future of gene therapy delivery?

Download Here: Troubleshooting GT_Recon Strategy 2022 In the last decade, gene therapies have been a major area of development and interest. What kicked off with the approval of Spark Therapeutics’ Luxturna in 2017 has now blossomed into a robust pipeline including the approval of Zolgensma (Novartis), and a number of cutting-edge therapies in clinical trials (such as Uniqure and CSL Behring’s therapy for hemophilia or Ultragenyx’s therapy for MPS IIIA). However, while the number of gene therapies entering clinical trials has increased, so have the inevitable stumbling blocks in development.

Read More

Will the coming wave of gene therapies have a Sovaldi-like impact?

The first approval of a gene therapy for congenital disease in the US (Luxturna) inaugurates a new – though long anticipated – era for therapeutics. Along with questions around durability of response and long-term safety, pricing and reimbursement is a particular challenge. At $850,000, the price of Luxturna is nominally higher than other high-cost specialty medicines. However, as a one-time cost with a multi-year benefit, the cost per year of efficacy is far lower. This is not a new challenge for the industry: Hepatitis C antiviral therapies such as Sovaldi

Read More

Is Anthem drawing a line in the sand on drug pricing?

The public debate on drug pricing has sharpened markedly over the past year. We are seeing more political scrutiny and media coverage, including the blowback on Mylan’s EpiPen pricing, tweets from now President Trump, as well as an unsuccessful California ballot initiative to force lower drug prices. This is all on top of a backdrop of seemingly ever-increasing coverage of the high costs of new medicines and double-digit price increases. Now market forces may be gearing up: in the past four months, Anthem — one of the “Big 3” payers

Read More

Biopharma innovation: Will there be sufficient incentives in the future?

Ezekiel Emanuel wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last month, which highlighted the low number of new antibiotics that have been brought to market in the past two decades. Antibiotics are a unique market compared to therapeutics for other diseases. Infectious disease clinicians prefer to use innovative new products as a last line of defense against highly resistant infections, relying on tried-and-true antibiotics as their primary options. Paradoxically, the “reward” for being a highly innovative, effective new antibiotic is to be sparsely used. Emanuel points out this conundrum while

Read More
Search
We use cookies
This website collects cookies to deliver better user experience and to analyze our website traffic and performance; we never collect any personal data or target you with ads.