The future of Eli Lilly, Pfizer and BioNTech setback, Gilead wins, drug price negotiations, and more.

Happy Friday, updaters! Another week has come and gone, and we want to send you off into the week’s end with a lovely recap STAT stories. So, let’s hop to it …?

The future of Eli Lilly

礼来 has become the world’s most valuable drug company by inventing novel drugs for obesity and diabetes. But heavy is the head that wears the crown, as they say. Can the company keep developing blockbuster drugs at this pace? Matthew Herper gives you leading biotech insight.?

Pfizer and BioNTech setback

辉瑞 and BioNTech SE said that their combined mRNA vaccine candidate against influenza and Covid-19 showed a lower immune response against one type of influenza, influenza B, in a Phase 3 trial, a setback for the vaccine.

Gilead wins drug approval?

The FDA approved a new treatment for primary biliary cholangitis, an autoimmune liver disease mainly affecting women that causes decreased liver function, debilitating itching, and fatigue.

The drug, called Livdelzi, will be sold by Gilead Sciences , following the $4.3 billion acquisition of CymaBay Therapeutics, its developer, earlier this year.

Adam’s Biotech Scorecard

The business of CRISPR medicine is going … not so great, Adam Feuerstein writes in the latest edition of his newsletter. He also gives his thoughts on an upcoming Phase 3 readout of an Alzheimer’s drug, bluebird bio 's financial peril, and more. Subscribe to read.

Drug price negotiations?

Medicare announced the long-awaited drug prices for the first round of negotiations under President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. Boehringer Ingelheim’s diabetes drug Jardiance, J&J's blood thinner Xarelto, and Novo Nordisk insulins are among the 10 drugs that received negotiated prices.

But the White House price comparisons dramatically overstate what Medicare pays for prescription drugs, according to our colleague Rachel Cohrs Zhang .?

Scientists want to improve sudden cardiac arrest survival odds?

Sudden cardiac arrest kills more than 400,000 Americans every year. Genetic analysis is revealing new vulnerabilities and syndromes; painstaking field work has built the foundation for risk prediction tools; cell therapies are moving toward clinical trials. These efforts are laying a strategy for sudden cardiac arrest that doesn’t depend so heavily on luck.

Connecting human and animal health?

What can a giraffe tell us about human heart disease? Find out in this fun Q&A between our colleague Nicholas St. Fleur and evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz.

Living with a disability in extreme heat

Extreme heat is taking its toll on Americans. But it’s even harder for people with disabilities to navigate the summer months. How do they do it??

Five people living in different corners of the country shared their stories with Timmy Broderick .?

Mpox

The World Health Organization declared the spread of mpox in multiple African countries a public health emergency of international concern, the second such declaration involving the virus in the past two years.

When mpox first began to spread internationally in 2022, affected countries scrambled to buy some of the limited supply of poxvirus vaccines produced in the world. The Danish company Bavarian Nordic, maker of the Jynneos smallpox vaccine, faced the sizable challenge of trying to meet demand with its supply.

The World Health Organization disclosed some projections of how much vaccine it thought Bavarian Nordic could make (cited in a STAT story here) that the company itself rather quickly corrected.