May 12, 2026

The need-to-know this morning

Rigel Pharma will market the newly approved breast cancer drug Veppanu under a commercialization agreement signed with Arvinas and Pfizer.
Roche received European clearance for a new blood test to detect early Alzheimer's disease.
BridgeBio submitted an application to the FDA seeking approval of its drug encaleret to treat patients with autosomal dominant hypocalcemia type 1, or ADH1, a rare genetic disease that causes low calcium levels in the blood.

Pharma

Bristol turns to Chinese drugmaker for early-stage pipeline restock

Bristol Myers Squibb this morning announced a partnership with Hengrui Pharma covering more than a dozen early-stage programs, the latest and a notably large case of a global pharmaceutical company looking to China for its next medicines, my colleague Andrew Joseph reports.

The licensing agreement includes a $600 million upfront payment from Bristol to Hengrui, and has a potential value of up to $15.2 billion if all milestones for the included drugs are reached.

The deal includes oncology, hematology and immunology drugs in early stage clinical development.

biotech

Gene therapy maker still unsure what caused a child's death

Last September, a child died in a trial of a gene therapy made by Capsida Biotherapeutics. In an update today, the biotech said it still has no answers on the cause of death.

The therapy, known as CAP-002, was the first in a wave of new gene therapies designed to deliver genes deep into the brain by using viruses engineered to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Capsida did disclose today that its virus targeted a receptor called ADAM-15. Notably, that's a different receptor than the one a Capsida patent indicated the virus targeted.

Scientists have theorized that directing a virus to the wrong receptor could disrupt its normal function and cause devastating side effects.

glp-1s

Hims' sales miss as telehealth competition grows

Hims & Hers reported yesterday $608 million in first quarter sales, less than the $617 million estimated by analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha. It also reported a net loss of $92 million, while analysts estimated net income of $33 million.

Shares of the company fell in after-hours trading.

Hims was one of the most prominent telehealth companies offering compounded GLP-1 drugs even after the brand-name versions were no longer in shortage. But in early March, it agreed in a deal with Novo Nordisk to stop marketing compounded versions and instead promote the branded drugs.

With that, it's becoming more similar to the many other telehealth companies that have partnered with Novo and Eli Lilly — such as Ro and Weight Watchers.

drug access

Viiv loses case that could affect global drug access

Viiv Healthcare has been trying to challenge Colombia's decision to issue a compulsory license for the company's HIV treatment Tivicay. Such a license allows a generic drugmaker to copy a patented medicine without the consent of the brand-name company.

ViiV, which is largely controlled by GSK, argues that compulsory licenses weaken the intellectual property system that biotechs rely on to make innovative treatments.

But a South American court has now sided with Colombia. Patient advocates hailed it as a “historic decision” and said it provides judicial backing for governments that want to use compulsory licenses to protect public health.

biotech

Opinion: the U.S. drug industry is self-destructing

U.S. drug executives are allowing their own industry to falter as China's biotechs grow more competitive, one writer argues in a new opinion piece.

Executives in the U.S. are too focused on short-term costs, writes Olivia Kosloff, a co-chair of a working group at the Council on Foreign Relations investigating the U.S.’s generic pharmaceutical dependence on China.

They're flocking to China to license drug candidates, which “has the hallmarks of a gold rush — but it will destroy American biotech,” she writes.