March 12, 2025

The need-to-know this morning

Geron CEO John "Chip" Scarlett is out. The company's board asked him to step down amdist a sputtering blood-cancer drug launch and a sinking stock price.

Obesity

Roche partners with Zealand on amylin-targeted obesity drug

Looking to expand its obesity offerings, Roche this morning said it had partnered with Zealand Pharma to license an experimental weight loss drug for $1.65 billion in upfront cash.

The Swiss pharma giant and the Danish biotech will now work together to develop Zealand’s drug candidate petrelintide, aiming to test it on its own and in combination with Roche’s experimental CT-388.

The agreement includes additional payments based on certain clinical and sales goals being met, totaling up to $5.3 billion.

politics

CDC nominee likely to face grilling on vaccine stance as workforce turmoil continues

Dave Weldon, President Trump pick to lead the CDC, is set to face a confirmation hearing before the Senate health committee on Thursday.

Unlike other Trump nominees, he was virtually invisible during the Covid-19 pandemic.

But my colleague Sarah Owermohle examined thousands of pages of documents from Weldon’s 14 years in Congress and talked to a half-dozen former health officials. What she found: His support for anti-vaccine theories runs long and deep, going back decades — even longer than RFK Jr.

His name, in fact, rose to the top of the administration's short list for CDC director after a push from Kennedy’s team, according to three people familiar with the process. Read more.

Elsewhere, 1oo CDC employees who were recently fired sent a letter to RFK Jr. and CDC leadership asking to be reinstated. “We maintain that the manner in which we were terminated did not follow due process requirements and should be found as not lawful,” they wrote.

The workers were previously employed in divisions that oversee cancer prevention, infectious disease readiness, global health, and a variety of other matters, according to a copy of the letter obtained by STAT.

drug pricing

Warren asks HHS to probe GSK's inhaler business

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is asking the HHS Office of Inspector General to investigate GSK over its decision to replace a popular asthma inhaler called Flovent with a generic version at a much higher price in order to avoid paying Medicaid rebates.

Warren sent a letter today to the OIG, accusing GSK of “outrageous profiteering.” She said the move cost Medicaid nearly $1 billion in 2024 and also deterred private insurers from covering the generic version, which reduced access and caused a shortage of the primary alternative for children.

pharma

Lilly CEO got a big payday (and an Olympics treat)

Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks made $114 million last year, according to a new proxy statement, a rare instance of a health executive pulling in nine figures in a single year.

Lilly also disclosed about $186,000 in reimbursed expenses that Ricks and two other Lilly officials were paid for the company’s “global executive leadership meeting” that took place in Paris in conjunction with the 2024 Olympics.

This comes as Lilly’s booming GLP-1 business, led by blockbuster treatments Mounjaro and Zepbound, drove the company to earn $10.6 billion in profits last year, more than double the amount earned the year prior. Investors’ hopes for even more powerful next-generation treatments in the company’s pipeline have propelled Lilly to become the most valuable health care company in the world.

infectious disease

Gilead's PrEP drug shows potential for yearly dosing

Gilead last year released data showing that its HIV drug, called lenacapavir, could provide virtually complete protection against infection with just a single injection every six months. The company yesterday released early data suggesting a new formulation of the drug given just once a year may also be used to prevent infection.

A key caveat is that the study did not actually test efficacy in preventing HIV. Instead, investigators looked at blood samples to measure the levels of drug that remained in participants' blood.

The people who received new once-yearly formulations had higher levels of drug in their bloodstream for 56 weeks than volunteers receiving once-every-six-month injections, suggesting the new medicine should provide equal protection.