Monthly Pharma updates - June 2025 🔔
Dear readers, so glad to introduce this new format to continue my mission of enabling information-sharing within our fantastic industry. This monthly newsletter is in addition to the weekly posts
Let's not wait further - you'll find below the 1st edition of the monthly pharma updates, with must-know information that was shared in June 2025.
🤝 Sanofi buys Blueprint Medicines for $9.1 B cash
What happened? Sanofi will pay $149 / share for Blueprint, gaining Ayvakit® (systemic mastocytosis) and KIT inhibitor BLU-808 for immune-mediated diseases.
Why it matters: This move boosts Sanofi’s immunology pipeline just as Dupixent® competition heats up, and gives it the only approved systemic-mastocytosis drug on the market.
🏛️ FDA lifts REMS hurdles for CAR-T cancer therapies
What changed? The agency scrapped its Risk Evaluation & Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program and the requirement that only REMS-certified hospitals can infuse CAR-T cells.
Why it matters: About 15–20 % of U.S. patients who are clinically eligible never reached a REMS center; community oncology clinics may now offer the six FDA-approved CAR-T products, shortening wait-lists and slashing travel costs. Analysts at Leerink estimate a 20-30 % addressable-market jump beginning this year.
🤝 BioNTech SE buys CureVac for $1.25 B
What happened? BioNTech is acquiring fellow German mRNA developer CureVac, ending a multi-year patent fight and adding GMP manufacturing in Tübingen and Boston.
Why it matters: Creates a German mRNA powerhouse with 10+ oncology candidates ready for clinic, while removing costly litigation over lipid-nanoparticle IP.
✈️ Eli Lilly air-freights $36 B of Irish GLP-1 hormones to Indiana
10.5 tonnes of peptides left Dublin in Q1–Q2 2025—equivalent to 2 years of U.S. Mounjaro/Zepbound demand—so Lilly can finish-formulate stateside before any Trump-era tariff snap-back on EU pharmaceuticals.
Why it matters: The airlift single-handedly pushed Ireland to No. 2 on America’s goods-trade deficit list and spotlights how weight-loss drugs have become strategic supply-chain assets.
🧐 RFK Jr. sacks every member of CDC’s vaccine panel (ACIP)
All 17 advisers were “retired” and replaced with critics of existing vaccine schedules; the new group immediately questioned evidence for COVID-19, measles and hepatitis-B shots.
Why it matters: ACIP recommendations drive state school-entry laws and payer coverage; the purge could fracture national immunization policy just as measles outbreaks climb.
🤝 Anne Wojcicki–led group buys 23andMe with $305 M winning bid
What happened? A nonprofit controlled by 23andMe’s co-founder outbid Regeneron in the bankruptcy auction, taking the consumer-genomics pioneer private.
Why it matters: Re-privatisation lets 23andMe reset its business model after DTC-testing fatigue, while denying Regeneron the chance to fold the world’s largest phenotype-linked DNA database into its drug-discovery engine.
🔄 Leadership exodus at FDA
CDER: Acting director Jacqueline Corrigan-Curay will retire in July, following a string of high-profile resignations.
CBER: Cell- & gene-therapy bosses Nicole Verdun and Rachael Anatol were placed on leave, injecting fresh uncertainty into gene-therapy review pathways.
⏩ FDA unveils Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher
Non-transferable voucher cuts review time from ~10 months to 1–2 months for drugs aligned with U.S. “national health priorities.”
Why it matters: Could rival the lucrative Priority Review Voucher market but without creating tradable speculation; early winners likely to be U.S.-manufactured anti-infectives and obesity drugs.
❌ Resilience shuts down 6 of 10 U.S. plants
Reason: Capacity build-out overshot demand; investors supplied $250 M bridge financing as the CDMO pivots to higher-margin biologics.
Why it matters: Signals cooling of pandemic-era biomanufacturing boom and tighter funding for large-scale cell- & gene-therapy capacity.
🤝 Eli Lilly buys Verve Therapeutics — total up to $1.3 B
What happened? Lilly is buying its CRISPR-base-editing partner outright, adding Verve-102 and other “one-and-done” LDL-lowering programs aimed at atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
Why it matters: Gene-editing moves from rare disease into mass cardiology; a single-shot PCSK9 edit could up-end the $20 B statin/PCSK9 antibody market and reinforce Lilly’s cardiometabolic lead.
See you in July for the next monthly edition and every Sunday on either LinkedIn or Substack to get the weekly updates.
Hope you'll enjoy this new format 🤝
Nicolas.