🐂Many drugmakers are herding into similar targets, trying to chase the next blockbuster treatments, senior biopharma correspondent Andrew Dunn writes. While herding isn’t new, it has gotten worse over the last couple decades. Only 16% of top drugmakers’ portfolios were in crowded targets in 2000, a percentage that quadrupled by 2020, a McKinsey analysis found. The last few years have only brought more attention to a handful of programs that have pipeline-in-a-product opportunities like Keytruda, Dupixent and Ozempic.

Regeneron co-founder and CSO George Yancopoulos, whose company spearheaded Dupixent with Sanofi, loudly criticized this trend in an interview. “Give me a new drug that treats a new disease,” he told Dunn. Yancopoulos is aware of the irony of his comments, however, given that Regeneron is itself working on a successor to Dupixent, though only “out of necessity,” he said. 

💰Mendra unveiled on Wednesday with $82 million to scour the landscape of rare disease medicines that need a new home for further development. CEO Joshua Grass wants to go after a suite of medicines for orphan diseases across a variety of therapeutic areas, types of treatment modalities and geographies. He hopes to have at least the first drug brought in-house within a year, Kyle LaHucik reported.

Grass said “there are a lot of underappreciated assets out there.” Mendra will look to get a mixture of assets spanning post-proof-of-concept to registrational-stage drugs so that it can commercialize them on a staggered schedule, he said.

🤝GSK scooped up RAPT for $2.2 billion this week, committing a $1.9 billion upfront investment. It’s the first acquisition under new CEO Luke Miels, though the deal was likely hammered out during Emma Walmsley’s transition out of the top post.

The prize is RAPT’s anti-IgE antibody, called RPT904 or ozureprubart. Currently, it’s in Phase 2b for food allergies, and data are expected in the first half of 2027. A GSK spokesperson said Phase 3 trials in food allergy are slated to begin in the second half of 2027, with the possibility of launching the drug in 2031. The company is positioning it as a potential billion-dollar-plus medicine.

🥼An experimental Sanofi drug succeeded in two Phase 3 studies this week. And while a path to US approval seems likely, the drug, known as amlitelimab, once again appeared to underperform market leader Dupixent on a measurement of skin clearance. It makes the outlook a lot muddier than one would hope. In September, Sanofi’s stock price fell about 9% after a separate Phase 3 trial for amlitelimab disappointed investors despite reaching its primary goal.