Biotech
Verily Health, together with NVIDIA and the NIH All of Us research program, has developed the first multimodal foundation model integrating EHR and genomic data, achieving significant improvements in type 2 diabetes risk prediction, and has open-sourced Forecast™ 1.0 via GitHub, providing an early blueprint for multimodal medical AI.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved updated COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax targeting the XFG variant. Moderna also announced it raised $2.6 billion through the issuance of convertible notes to support its cancer drug business. Additionally, Generate Biomedicines saw a sharp stock decline due to premature disclosure of trial data, ProFound Therapeutics received a $35 million investment from the Gates Foundation, and Gilead's new HIV drug Bixlenvo was also approved by the FDA.
Outer Bio recently emerged from stealth mode, with its core technology capable of keeping ex vivo skin tissue alive for about a month and using AI to screen millions of compounds to discover new skincare ingredients or skin disease therapies. Co-founder and CEO Michael Polansky stated that the company deliberately avoids the traditional biotech path, instead focusing on efficient data generation and planning to prioritize the cosmetics market route over pharmaceuticals.
Revolution Medicines' pancreatic cancer drug Rasonque has launched at a higher-than-expected price, and analysts believe it is poised to quickly become a blockbuster and potentially rank among the world's top-selling drugs. The drug is priced at $39,800 for a 30-day course, with an annual procurement cost exceeding $477,000. Evercore ISI projects its sales to reach $2.4 billion next year, and by 2034, sales from the pancreatic cancer indication alone could reach $15.1 billion. If expanded to other cancer types, peak annual revenue could reach $20.8 billion.
Today's industry news roundup: Eli Lilly's Zepbound study shows reduced medical costs for obese or overweight adults over 55; Akeso and Summit's ivonescimab shows survival benefit in a Phase III trial for advanced biliary tract cancer in China; McKesson acquires Precision Medicine Group for $2.25 billion; Haisco licenses immunology drug to newly formed Sentivera; Johnson & Johnson's Imaavy receives FDA approval for warm autoimmune hemolytic anemia; Bausch + Lomb advances dry eye drug into Phase III trials.