News & Events That Matter To Asian Biotech

2023-06-23 Biotech Hangout podcast continued to impress! The hosts covered the Eli Lilly/DICE Therapeutics M&A for $2.4B, Riovant's positive data in IBD, eyebrow-raising trading behaviors of biopharma insiders, why FTC's lawsuit against Amgen/Horizon M&A is largely a political play, an investigative article from STAT News on the "unethical" practice of PBM, and drug pricing issue in light of the approval of Sarepta's Elevidys for DMD with a $3.2M price tag. Finally, they elaborated extensively on the performance of those big academia/industries alliances that involved hundreds of millions of dollars.

2023-06-22 PhRMA, the trade group of biopharma companies in the US, joined a few biopharma companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to sue the US government over Inflation Reduction Act's drug pricing practice (IRA). When IRA was passed last year, many experts predicted lawsuits from the industry, and we have been seeing this prediction being realized in recently.

2023-06-18 AstraZeneca is allegedly considering to spin off its China business and list it on HKEX, based on a Financial Times article HERE. Conversely, AstraZeneca's emerging markets head Leon Wang refuted this as a "rumor" in an exclusive Yicai Global article. This is one of the biggest news in China biotech space this week, since AZ's CEO Pascal Soriot has been speaking very highly of China as an important market at AZ's 1Q2023 earnings presentation and a critical source of innovations ASCO2023 corporate event.

In one LinkedIn post, one expert argues that the Financial Times rumor might pan out, based on the similar reports from other leading Western newspapers, the unusually quiet voices from the lawyers who might have insights, and his personal experiences from a similar situation involving another European MNC.

Our ISWT-Community member Bob Ai from Goby Global started a survey to collect the LinkedIn folks' prediction on this one. Give it a try. Additionally, ISWTC-Breakthrough WeChat group has been discussing on this topic, and contact our volunteers to get the copy of the full discussion.

2023-06-16 A recent Topline Podcast episode features our own Angus Liu, who shared interesting news from BIO2023 and ASC02023. Angus Liu hosted two panel discussions at BIO2023 and covered news from Moderna, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and a BD deal involved Asian biotech Hutchmed's fruqutinib.

2023-06-15 AbbVie sues BeiGene over alleged patent infringement on Imbruvica, reported by ISWT-Community volunteer Angus Liu. The recent Phase 3 ALPINE win of Brukinsa vs Imbruvica triggered the NCCN to recommend Brukinsa over Imbruvica in several indications in the NCCN guideline, the most authoritative guidance in the US. JP Morgan suggested the 10%+ rout of BeiGene stock was "overreacting" and forecast a "...modest royalty and/or one-time payment as a potential worst-case scenario outcome for BeiGene...". It's worth noting that AbbVie sued AstraZeneca in 2017 over its BTK Calquence, which was settled with an undisclosed terms in 2019.