The year kicked off with a flurry of dealmaking at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January, and the pace of news hasn’t let up since. We’ve seen Big Pharma dive into antibody-drug conjugate and radiopharma deals, while the race is on to find the next all-conquering obesity medicine.
At the other end of the biopharma spectrum, the IPO window has cracked open and a number of companies have ventured to the public markets—with mixed results. Whether it was attending conferences, hosting panels of high-profile speakers or getting back in front of the podcast mic, Fierce Biotech and its sister publications have been hard at work to bring you breaking news and in-depth insights to make sense of a rapidly evolving sector.
With the holiday season offering a rare chance to draw breath, we thought it was the perfect time to look back at some of the reporting we’re most proud of.
Roche's pharma BD chief explains renewed ADC interest but is spoiled for choice
The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference not only sets the agenda for the rest of the year, it also offers the Fierce team unrivaled opportunities to sit down with some of the biggest names in the biz. This year’s event saw the hosts point to antibody-drug conjugates as the driver of dealmaking heat in the previous quarter, while Johnson & Johnson’s $2 billion deal for ADC developer Ambrx showed this trend was set to continue. Against this backdrop, it was no surprise that ADCs were top of conversation when Fierce Pharma’s Angus Liu sat down with Roche’s global head of pharma partnering, James Sabry, Ph.D., on the sidelines of the conference.
Roche kicked off the year by inlicensing a next-gen ADC from China’s MediLink Therapeutics, and Sabry told Angus that when it comes to ADCs, the priority was in-house development first, external dealmaking second.
“We’re not a fashion company,” Sabry said in the interview. “We don’t just jump on a bandwagon because everyone else is doing it. We do things because we really believe that an innovative product will bring unusual value to patients.” Read the story here
Fierce’s cell therapy series
2024 was a turning point for cell therapy, with Big Pharmas like Sanofi and Bristol Myers Squibb streamlining work in the space, confronted with manufacturing challenges and the reality of marketing a personalized therapy. With companies making slow progress in moving cell therapies into solid tumors and bispecifics stealing the spotlight, there has also been a trend towards targeting cell therapies at autoimmune disease.
To survey this shifting landscape, as well as cram in as many interviews as possible, Fierce published a trio of pieces in May, looking at why cell therapies have “lost [their] luster” in cancer, the migration to autoimmune indications and the story behind CAR-T therapies’ newfound potential in lupus.
Fierce Biotech's Gabrielle Masson presents Fierce 15 at NYSE
Unveiling the Fierce 15 list is always a high point of our year, as we run down the 15 companies breaking barriers and defining the future of the industry. But in 2024 we took the news all the way to the trading floor, when associate editor Gabrielle Masson was invited to discuss the list—as well as the biggest trends in biotech—live on NYSE TV.
What made Gabrielle’s appearance even more impressive was that she went in front of the cameras on just two hours of sleep, after her flight to New York was delayed by Hurricane Debby. But not even a Category 1 hurricane is enough to stop the team from spreading the word about the Fierce 15. Read the story here
ASCO: Cautious Big Pharmas double down on past wins—steering clear of radioligands and cell therapy
Gabrielle also made it to this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology conference, although the journey was slightly less arduous as the event takes place in her hometown of Chicago. The conference was back in full force for 2024, complete with digital business cards and a virtual reality ride courtesy of Gilead Sciences.
“I think that people finally are showing up like in the old days,” Merck & Co.’s chief medical officer Eliav Barr, M.D., told Gabrielle on the sidelines of the event. Read the story here
In the wake of Céline Dion's diagnosis and comeback, stiff-person syndrome researchers and advocates march toward a cure
This year saw Darren Incorvaia become the newest addition to the Fierce Biotech team, including heading up our Fierce Biotech Research newsletter. Darren’s coverage of the cutting edge of academic and preclinical R&D has seen him cover everything from why certain patients are excluded from oncology trials to biotechs’ increased interest in chromosomes in cancer cells.
One standout was his conversation with an advocate for patients with stiff-person syndrome, conducted against the backdrop of singer Céline Dion’s diagnosis of the rare neurological disease. “The fact that people are researching it, the fact that we're getting therapies into clinical trials, it's definitely exciting,” Tara Zier, founder and CEO of the Stiff Person Syndrome Research Foundation, told Darren in the interview. Read the story here
Biotech bankruptcies hit 10-year peak in 2023
Fierce Biotech analyzed industry data to reach the stunning, and worrying, conclusion that more biotech companies filed for bankruptcy in 2023 than any year since 2010. The data, collated from S&P Global Market Intelligence, revealed that 18 companies filed for protection in 2023 compared to eight in 2022, which had previously held the record as the highest bankruptcy year.
Judging by the stories that have already emerged from the likes of Gritstone bio and Seelos Therapeutics, the data for 2024 are unlikely to make for more pleasant reading. Read the story here
'Some call it the J.P. Morgan of Europe': Jefferies' London conference goes big for 2024
Our U.K. and EU Bureau Chief James Waldron is a regular attendee at the Jefferies Healthcare Conference in London, but, this year, something felt different. The increased attendance meant the event burst out of the confines of its usual hotel, and everyone Fierce spoke with is now making comparisons to JPM.
Does this mean we can soon expect to see pharmas arriving at future conferences armed with some big dealmaking announcements? Or is the real parallel the bad weather and overly packed venues? We'll check back in 2025 to see for ourselves. Read the story here
Novo Nordisk’s chief scientific officer looks to the future of GLP-1s
Fierce Biotech and Fierce Pharma’s "The Top Line" podcast went from strength to strength in 2024, covering everything from the surge of investment in the neuroscience sector to an interview with the CEO of gene editing biotech Verve Therapeutics and even the secret formula behind a successful biotech brand name.
One recent highlight was a conversation with Novo Nordisk’s Marcus Schindler, Ph.D., where the chief scientific officer not only gave Fierce the inside track on where the Wegovy-maker plans to take GLP-1s next but also reflected on the highs (and lows) of his own career at the company.
Make sure to subscribe to "The Top Line" wherever you get your podcasts.