Zilebesiran

▎药明康德内容团队编辑近日，行业媒体Endpoints News发布了2024全球生物医药企业研发投入TOP 15榜单，药明康德内容团队将结合公开资料为读者解析上榜企业在2024年扩展研发管线的战略布局，旨在通过这些企业的创新动向展现整个产业的发展趋势。点击文末“阅读原文/read more”，即可访问原始榜单页面。▲2024年研发投入最多TOP 15生物医药公司（图片来源：药明康德内容团队根据参考资料[1]制表）默沙东2024年，默沙东通过“收购+合作”双轨策略，在多个治疗领域实现深度布局：年初，公司以6.8亿美元收购Harpoon Therapeutics，斩获DLL3靶向T细胞接合器HPN328；5月，斥资30亿美元收购EyeBio，囊获四价三特异性抗体Restoret；12月又拿下翰森制药的HS-10535全球权益，进一步拓展小分子药物管线，并成功进军GLP-1领域。与此同时，默沙东加速布局前沿技术：公司与Pearl Bio达成10亿美元合作，开发含非标准氨基酸的生物制品疗法；引入Variational AI的生成式AI平台优化药物发现，并与礼新医药就PD-1/VEGF双抗达成最高27亿美元里程碑合作。不久前，默沙东还与恒瑞医药就小分子心血管新药Lp（a）抑制剂达成授权合作。这一系列举措不仅加深了默沙东在实体瘤领域的研发能力，还通过新兴技术平台主动构建未来增长引擎。罗氏罗氏正加速推进其核心研发管线，聚焦肿瘤、神经退行性疾病及呼吸系统疾病等领域。在神经退行性疾病领域，罗氏近期公布了其靶向淀粉样蛋白的单抗药物trontinemab用于治疗轻度至中度阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者的1b/2a期试验积极结果。另一款药物prasinezumab也有望于年内获得支持进入3期临床的关键数据。在慢性阻塞性肺病（COPD）领域，罗氏旗下IL-33抑制剂astegolimab的两项临床试验数据预计将于今年揭晓。在RNA治疗领域，罗氏与Alnylam合作开发的zilebesiran在治疗高血压患者的2期临床试验中展示了显著疗效。免疫学管线方面，其BTK抑制剂fenebrutinib在针对多发性硬化的2期试验中表现良好，有望在今年获得关键数据；IL-6抗体vamikibart针对葡萄膜炎性黄斑水肿的3期研究也将公布结果。从战略布局来看，罗氏通过选择性并购与全球合作进一步夯实其研发管线。公司斥资超30亿美元收购Carmot Therapeutics，以强化其在代谢疾病领域的布局；以超10亿美元收购Poseida Therapeutics以获得其现货型CAR-T技术；此外，罗氏还以近8000万美元预付款与信达生物达成合作，共同开发小细胞肺癌疗法。与此同时，罗氏与Oxford BioTherapeutics达成多年合作，聚焦抗体疗法开发，延续其在肿瘤免疫领域的深度布局。阿斯利康阿斯利康持续加码研发创新，研发投入从2019年的60亿美元跃升至2024年的逾130亿美元，驱动其从肿瘤领域向其他疾病领域加速扩张。在肿瘤管线，口服选择性雌激素受体降解剂（SERD）camizestrant的3期临床积极数据，加深了该疗法在乳腺癌治疗领域的重要性；在心血管疾病领域，阿斯利康通过收购CinCor Pharma获得新型醛固酮合成酶抑制剂baxdrostat，该药物在2期临床试验可显著降低难治性高血压患者的血压水平，为临床治疗难治性高血压提供了潜在新选择。战略布局层面，阿斯利康动作频出：与Allorion Therapeutics达成独家选择权和全球许可协议，共同开发EGFR L858R突变靶向变构抑制剂，瞄准晚期EGFR突变非小细胞肺癌（NSCLC）治疗缺口；斥资10.5亿美元收购Amolyt Pharma，获得处于3期临床阶段的甲状旁腺功能减退症创新多肽疗法eneboparatide（AZP-3601）；更斥资20亿美元收购Fusion Pharmaceuticals，整合其放射偶联药物（RDC）平台及FPI-2265等管线，强化肿瘤精准治疗布局。强生强生近期在免疫学领域取得关键研究进展：从Protagonist Therapeutics引进的口服IL-23受体拮抗剂icotrokinra针对斑块状银屑病的3期临床试验达到主要终点。在管线推进方面，靶向新生儿Fc受体的抗体疗法nipocalimab迎来多项进展。该疗法针对全身性重症肌无力（gMG）适应症已向FDA递交生物制品许可申请（BLA）并获得优先审评资格，同时向EMA同步提交上市许可申请（MAA），有望成为重磅疗法。战略布局方面，强生斥资146亿美元收购Intra-Cellular Therapies，斩获每日一次口服精神疾病治疗药物Caplyta（ITI-007）和ITI-1284，同步整合其临床阶段研发管线。艾伯维2024年，艾伯维专注多元化管线的拓展。在核心产品方面，免疫领域药物Skyrizi获批溃疡性结肠炎适应症；肿瘤领域亦取得重要突破，其抗体偶联药物（ADC）Elahere获FDA完全批准；神经科学领域则推出创新产品Vyalev，该疗法为首款获FDA批准的基于左旋多巴的皮下24小时持续输注帕金森病疗法。为补充研发管线，艾伯维开展了一系列战略收购，包括以2亿美元收购Nimble获得口服肽类IL-23R抑制剂，纳入Celsius的TREM1抗体和Landos Biopharma的口服NLRX1激动剂强化炎症性肠病治疗领域，以及收购Aliada布局阿尔茨海默病临床阶段疗法ALIA-1758。在创新合作方面，艾伯维同样成果丰硕：与EvolveImmune Therapeutics达成15亿美元合作开发多特异性抗肿瘤疗法，联合Umoja Biopharma推进原位CAR-T细胞疗法研发，携手Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals合作开发针对精神疾病的下一代疗法，与Parvus Therapeutics共同开发炎症性肠病的新疗法，以及与OSE Immunotherapeutics和Tentarix Biotherapeutics建立合作共同推进肿瘤学和免疫学等领域的新药研发。通过一系列收购和合作，艾伯维不仅加强其在免疫学和肿瘤学领域的布局，还在神经科学领域取得了重要进展。百时美施贵宝百时美施贵宝持续加大研发投入以巩固创新优势，2024年研发投入再攀新高，公司通过战略性并购与合作增强其管线建设。在神经精神疾病领域，百时美施贵宝斥资140亿美元收购Karuna Therapeutics获得突破性药物Cobenfy（KarXT），该药已获FDA批准治疗成人精神分裂症，成为近数十年来FDA批准的首个基于新机制的精神分裂症药。此外，该药物用于治疗阿尔茨海默病患者精神病发作的潜力。也引发了高度关注。在合作方面，百时美施贵宝不断迭代其管线：公司与BioArctic达成合作，共同开发靶向PyroGlu-Aβ的阿尔茨海默病抗体疗法BAN1503和BAN2803；携手Prime Medicine开发下一代T细胞疗法；与VantAI合作部署分子胶技术平台。通过这些举措，百时美施贵宝在多个关键领域实现了战略布局，并进一步增强了其创新能力。礼来2024年，礼来公司持续在减重和阿尔茨海默病治疗领域发力。在肥胖症治疗领域，其口服GLP-1受体激动剂orforglipron在2期临床试验中展现出显著的减重效果，其3期试验正在推进；同时，公司布局的多靶点GLP-1/GIP/GCG激动剂retatrutide在2期研究中使肥胖或超重成人患者在经过24周的治疗后，达成至少15%的体重下降。在神经退行性疾病管线中，靶向β淀粉样蛋白的remternetug（每季度一次注射）也已进入关键临床阶段。在心血管和肿瘤领域，礼来也在同步发力：降血脂药物lepodisiran与muvalaplin正在加速临床开发；KRAS抑制剂olomorasib展现出显著的潜力。战略布局层面，礼来通过多重手段扩展创新边界，包括以32亿美元收购Morphic Holding，获得炎症性肠病口服整合素靶向疗法MORF-057，进一步强化自身免疫学管线；与KeyBioscience合作开发胰淀素/降钙素双重激动剂；携手HAYA Therapeutics利用RNA引导基因调控平台推进代谢疾病的临床前药物研发；并与Isomorphic Labs达成合作，借助AlphaFold技术加速小分子药物发现。通过持续的研发投入与精准并购，礼来成功构建了一个覆盖代谢、神经、心血管及肿瘤领域的创新生态。辉瑞2024年，辉瑞公司通过创新疗法研发和战略合作持续强化其研发管线布局。在肿瘤领域，高选择性CDK4抑制剂atirmociclib展现突出潜力，在针对经多线治疗的乳腺癌患者的1期临床试验中，atirmociclib组合疗法实现32%的客观缓解率（ORR），显著优于现有疗法（ORR<10%）且安全性良好。在代谢疾病领域，辉瑞重点推进口服小分子GLP-1受体激动剂danuglipron用于肥胖治疗的临床开发。疫苗领域也取得了重要突破，Abrysvo获FDA批准扩展适应症，用于预防18至59岁高风险个体因呼吸道合胞病毒（RSV）引起的下呼吸道疾病。辉瑞同时积极开展外部合作：与Quotient Therapeutics合作探索心血管和肾脏疾病的新疗法；通过旗下Ignite平台与Acepodia公司合作开发自身免疫疾病疗法；与Flagship Pioneering旗下两家公司Ampersand Biomedicines和Montai Therapeutics就肥胖症和非小细胞肺癌治疗开展靶向分子研发合作。诺华2024年，诺华继续推动包括Fabhalta、Leqvio和Scemblix等核心产品的商业化进程。在后期管线中，脊髓性肌萎缩（SMA）疗法OAV101有望扩大患者覆盖范围，而从PTC Therapeutics引进的亨廷顿病治疗药物votoplam（PTC518）也展现出重大潜力。此外，诺华通过一系列战略性收购与合作加速创新：以11亿美元收购Kate Therapeutics强化其在神经科学和基因治疗领域布局；30亿美元收购MorphoSys增强肿瘤及血液学领域管线；与Ratio Therapeutics合作开发放射性治疗药物；与Arvinas达成超10亿美元协议获得其PROTAC降解剂项目；12亿美元携手Voyager Therapeutics推进亨廷顿病和SMA基因疗法研发。这一系列举措展现了诺华在肿瘤、神经科学和罕见病等关键治疗领域的深度布局，为其长期发展奠定坚实基础。GSK2024年，GSK通过核心产品创新和战略收购持续强化其产业布局。在疫苗领域，GSK公布其带状疱疹疫苗Shingrix的十年保护效力积极数据。在呼吸系统疾病方面，一年两次给药的IL-5单抗depemokimab在3期临床研究中取得积极进展，并已向美国FDA提交生物制品许可申请。在抗感染领域，创新抗生素Blujepa（gepotidacin）获批上市。与此同时，GSK也正通过一系列战略性布局加速管线拓展：公司斥资14亿美元收购Aiolos Bio获得长效抗胸腺基质淋巴细胞生成素（TSLP）单抗AIO-001；以8.5亿美元收购恩沐生物（Chimagen Biosciences）的双靶点T细胞接合器CMG1A46，并与Muna Therapeutics、Vesalius Therapeutics等公司合作开发神经退行性疾病创新疗法。此外，GSK还获得了映恩生物（Duality Biologics）ADC药物DB-1324的全球权益（除大中华区），进一步丰富了其在肿瘤领域的产品组合。赛诺菲2024年，赛诺菲持续加大研发投入，并在管线推进方面取得显著进展。在呼吸疾病领域，IL-33单抗Itepekimab针对COPD的适应症已进入3期临床开发阶段，数据预计于下半年公布；同时，针对哮喘的双抗疗法lunsekimig已推进至2期临床阶段。在血液肿瘤管线中，BTK抑制剂tolebrutinib获得FDA优先审评资格，PDUFA日期定于2025年9月28日。此外，公司管线中的其他项目也在积极推进，包括蛋白降解药物KT-474和口服BTK抑制剂rilzabrutinib。与此同时，赛诺菲深化战略合作以布局未来增长点。公司与Orano Med达成3亿欧元股权投资及3.2亿欧元独家许可协议，联合开发下一代放射性配体药物，开辟肿瘤精准治疗新路径；并与Synthekine合作优化IL-10受体激动剂，旨在满足炎症性疾病的未满足需求。此外，赛诺菲还以17亿美元收购Inhibrx Biosciences，获得α-1抗胰蛋白酶缺乏症（AATD）候选药物INBRX-101。诺和诺德2024年，诺和诺德聚焦三大核心治疗领域：糖尿病/肥胖症/代谢功能障碍相关脂肪性肝炎（MASH）、心血管/慢性肾病以及罕见病。其重点产品CagriSema（cagrilintide/司美格鲁肽复方制剂）在3期临床试验中展现出积极疗效，治疗68周可实现22.7%的显著减重效果。为拓展创新管线，诺和诺德开展了一系列战略布局：斥资10.25亿欧元收购Cardior公司，获得其处于2期临床阶段的心力衰竭反义寡核苷酸疗法CDR132L；与Ascendis Pharma合作开发每月一次给药的GLP-1受体激动剂；同时与EraCal、Metaphore、Omega Therapeutics和Cellarity公司等多家企业达成合作协议，共同开发新一代减重疗法和MASH治疗药物。安进2024年，安进公司聚焦核心创新药物布局，重点推进代谢疾病和心血管领域突破性疗法。其注射型肥胖症药物MariTide在2期临床试验中展现出显著疗效，治疗52周实现约20%的平均体重减轻，并显著改善心血管代谢指标，目前已进入关键后期试验阶段。在心血管领域，siRNA疗法olpasiran在2期试验中表现优异，可使98%患有动脉粥样硬化性心血管疾病（ASCVD）患者的载脂蛋白（a）水平降至标准值以下，目前正在ASCVD患者中开展3期临床试验，预计2026年公布结果。安进同时积极推进其他重点产品：CD19抗体Uplizna今日获FDA批准，用于治疗免疫球蛋白G4相关疾病（IgG4-RD）成人患者；治疗特应性皮炎的rocatinlimab则在3期试验中达成所有主要和次要终点，展现出显著的临床改善效果。吉利德科学2024年，吉利德科学通过创新疗法突破和战略合作持续推动多元化发展。其在肿瘤治疗领域取得重要进展，与Arcellx合作开发的BCMA靶向CAR-T疗法anito-cel在治疗复发/难治性多发性骨髓瘤（RRMM）的2期临床试验中表现优异：总缓解率高达97%，12个月总生存率达到96.5%，且安全性良好，未出现迟发性神经毒性。同时，公司以43亿美元收购CymaBay获得了原发性胆汁性胆管炎（PBC）治疗seladelpar，显著增强了自身肝脏疾病产品管线，该药物已在2024年8月被FDA批准。此外，吉利德还通过多项战略合作加速创新布局：与Tubulis、Xilio Therapeutics及Merus达成总额超49亿美元的合作协议，重点开发ADC、肿瘤激活IL-12蛋白及三特异性抗体等前沿疗法；追加3.2亿美元投资Arcus Biosciences以推进联合开发项目。这些举措加强了吉利德在肿瘤学和肝脏疾病等新治疗领域的战略布局与创新实力。再生元2024年，再生元公司聚焦肿瘤、免疫和基因治疗三大领域，构建了丰富的创新药物管线。在肿瘤领域，抗LAG-3单抗fianlimab联合PD-1疗法展现出显著疗效，在非小细胞肺癌和黑色素瘤患者中达到近60%的客观缓解率；双特异性抗体linvoseltamab已向FDA和EMA提交上市申请，用于治疗多发性骨髓瘤。此外，与Intellia合作的CRISPR基因编辑疗法NTLA-2001在治疗转甲状腺素蛋白淀粉样变性（ATTR）的1期临床试验中取得积极结果。在代谢疾病和呼吸系统疾病领域，抗GDF8单抗trevogrumab和抗IL-33单抗itepekimab等创新疗法正处于后期临床开发阶段，展现了公司在多元化治疗领域的研发实力。除了研发进展，再生元在过去的一年还达成了多项合作与交易：与Mammoth Biosciences达成1亿美元协议开发体内CRISPR基因编辑疗法；通过收购2seventy bio的细胞疗法管线成立Regeneron Cell Medicines，探索细胞疗法与抗体药物的联合应用。▲欲了解更多前沿技术在生物医药产业中的应用，请长按扫描上方二维码，即可访问“药明直播间”，观看相关话题的直播讨论与精彩回放参考资料：[1] Big ambitions at Merck and AstraZeneca — along with a few giant pitfalls — reshape top ranks of the R&D 15. Retrieved April 3, 2025 from https://endpts.com/big-ambitions-at-merck-and-astrazeneca-along-with-a-few-giant-pitfalls-reshape-top-ranks-of-the-rd-15/[2] 各公司官网免责声明：药明康德内容团队专注介绍全球生物医药健康研究进展。本文仅作信息交流之目的，文中观点不代表药明康德立场，亦不代表药明康德支持或反对文中观点。本文也不是治疗方案推荐。如需获得治疗方案指导，请前往正规医院就诊。版权说明：本文来自药明康德内容团队，欢迎个人转发至朋友圈，谢绝媒体或机构未经授权以任何形式转载至其他平台。转载授权请在「药明康德」微信公众号回复“转载”，获取转载须知。分享，点赞，在看，聚焦全球生物医药健康创新

Step back from the multitude of details that go into every big pharma pipeline, and you’ll see the influence that blockbusters have on the entire field. These days, making your mark in R&D at the level the top 15 spenders play requires not just one, two or three experimental drugs that can earn a billion dollars a year. It’s typically about a slate that includes candidates that can bring in $3 billion to $5 billion a year, preferably more. The numbers keep getting bigger. When Merck execs look at the $30 billion-plus hole they have to fill once Keytruda goes off-patent, they know that anything under a billion won’t count for much. And you can see the same math dominating discussions at J&J, Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb and more. On the plus side, the drive to move the dial on sales includes changing standards of care for large numbers of patients. That can open up some hard targets that have defied investigators for years. The hunt for first- and best-in-class drugs inspires truly innovative development work. But for patients — including me — who suffer from diseases that aren’t among the major league targets, it can be hard to find much interest among a set of companies that have to think big in order to survive. These days, with IPOs still out of favor, the blockbuster strategy of the big cap players is more influential than ever. Those R&D alliances that can sustain a biotech will be skewed to the companies that are breaking new ground where pharma sees the biggest upsides. And it will bend an entire global industry’s decision-making process. Success breeds success in this field. AstraZeneca, which once struggled to turn around the industry’s weakest pipeline, can now devote close to $14 billion a year for drug research in a variety of fields. And that has helped alter the landscape of the R&D 15, which once was long dominated by Roche. Other key themes emerge here. One of the most important is the emergence of China as a force in drug discovery. BD teams looking for R&D shortcuts have begun picking up drug candidates in bulk in China, presenting a thorny new reality for US and European biotechs that aren’t able to move as quickly. This year, I’m concentrating on public pharma companies, which have always dominated the list. But it excludes the privately-owned Boehringer Ingelheim, where it’s harder to find details on the pipeline. Takeda also drops off this year’s list, falling just short of the dollar mark needed. And Regeneron marks its arrival as the big biotech invests heavily in its pipeline. — John Carroll The big picture: During 2023, Merck bulked up on M&A deals that pumped up its R&D budget line to a whopping $30.5 billion. In 2024, the pharma giant continued shelling out the big bucks, but without a scale-tipping deal like the $10.8 billion Prometheus acquisition we saw included in the R&D line in 2023. Nevertheless, Merck easily held on to the top spot among the 15 biggest public company R&D spenders on the planet. By the end of last year, Merck had once again dwarfed the old R&D spending leaders like Basel-based Roche, where budget discipline remains a constant. Merck has been shoveling cash into the R&D engine because it’s three years away from a titanic collision with a key patent loss for Keytruda, the $30 billion — and counting — PD-1 behemoth that went a long way to changing the way cancer is treated. Merck continues to rack up big annual increases in Keytruda revenue, which has been essential as the company’s other big earner — Gardasil — fizzled in the face of some ambitious sales projections for the China market. There’s one ace in the hole, with analysts arguing over just how much Merck can make from their late-stage subcutaneous version of Keytruda, which will come with a whole new patent life to profit off of. But whether it’s $6 billion or $7 billion a year, that still leaves a Grand Canyon-sized gap in the budget that must be filled. And the rep of CEO Rob Davis and R&D chief Dean Li will be made or lost on their pipeline strategy for a Keytruda replacement. Or replacements. “The future is less monolithic Keytruda,” Davis said . “It’s going to be a lot of smaller, precision-based therapies aimed at specific tumors or indications.” It’s going to take a lot of smaller drugs to mend a rip that size. That means a long string of deals, including a move to elbow its way to the future of immunotherapy with a rival to Summit’s PD-1/VEGF combo. And that required a turn to China, following what is now a well-beaten path for new drugs that they’ve bet big on. Merck kept the focus on China when it inked a deal just days ago for an oral Lp(a) inhibitor from Hengrui . Novartis recently delayed the timeline for wrapping its Phase 3 study for an antisense candidate for Lp(a) (partnered with Ionis), pushing the results for data on 8,000 patients to the first half of 2026. Merck put up a $200 million down payment on a $2 billion deal for an oral treatment that will need to go through a global program. That’s a low-cost deal in front of a major trial expense, and it offers a chance to leap into a race where orals may well end up ruling the franchise. But it’s no Keytruda. Investors don’t care much for the overall picture. Merck’s shares have dwindled more than 21% over the past year, even as sales kept climbing. Wall Street wasn’t crazy about Merck’s decision to withdraw guidance on Gardasil, at all. And the Keytruda dilemma has created a narrative that has dominated the company for years now. Merck execs can project confidence, but R&D spending illustrates a high level of anxiety. The big picture: You can bet that Roche execs were paying particularly close attention to AstraZeneca’s recent release of a positive, preliminary slice of late-stage data for camizestrant, its oral SERD for hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. The Basel-based pharma giant has been angling — alongside Eli Lilly — to beat a path to the market with a best-in-class oral SERD that can be expected to rack up billions a year, provided they get in early on a field that has been a primary concern for years. Roche CEO Thomas Schinecker has pegged giredestrant as one of its top late-stage drugs, putting it in the pole position of a chart of potential blockbusters as it waits for late-stage data from their persevERA and evERA trials. It’s in a group of seven pipeline therapies that Roche believes can pave the way to new franchises worth $3 billion or more. AstraZeneca has pegged its rival as a $5 billion-plus earner, offering some added insight here on where the market is focused. But the others include some high flyers that face daunting odds in the clinic, as well as a cluster of rivals that Roche has to race for best-in-class status. Take, for example, the amyloid buster trontinemab, which recently offered an early picture of its ability to target the plaque — cognition was not part of that study, though. And the road for Alzheimer’s drugs is long and frequently twisted, with a questionable marketing future if it fails to do more than slow progression. Prasinezumab has failed a couple of mid-stage studies for Parkinson’s, as investigators try to find a population where it works. Parkinson’s remains one of the toughest targets in the industry, with repeated setbacks for key players — including a rival with the mechanism as Roche’s drug. Trontinemab and prasinezumab are both up for Phase 3 enabling readouts this year. Astegolimab is a dark horse Phase 3 candidate in a group of drugs aimed at taking on Dupixent’s dominant role in COPD. That drug — which inhibits the IL-33 receptor ST2 — was flagged for pivotal readouts this year from the ALIENTO and ARNASA trials. A couple of years ago, Roche fronted $310 million to partner with Alnylam on the RNAi drug zilebesiran for hypertension, which has posted positive mid-stage data. That makes the cut as a major potential player. NXT007 offers a new shot at hemophilia A after Roche took a hit on its gene therapy out of the Spark buyout. Long term, Roche wants to keep building around the Hemlibra franchise, which brought in $5 billion in 2024. In the follow-up category of potential blockbusters, Roche counts four drugs with $2 billion to $3 billion in peak sales potential. That group includes their BTK inhibitor fenebrutinib, which has reportedly done well in Phase 2 for MS. That’s up for a pivotal readout this year, along with vamikibart, which is in two studies called SANDCAT and MEERKAT for uveitic macular edema. As one of the biggest R&D operators in the world, Roche can afford a big pipeline with a number of misses. It’s the one or two big successes in each group of contenders that sustain a company of this size, as it proved yet again with their Regeneron rival Vabysmo, which broke through the $4 billion barrier last year as Tecentriq flattened out and exhibited signs of erosion. Polivy also jumped into the blockbuster club, marking a key marketing success. The key thing for Roche R&D is putting up a slate of credible contenders, with a group of late-stage candidates tackling big diseases and at least one big prospect that looks competitive in the multibillion-dollar class. To that end, Roche continues to selectively snap up new candidates and forge new alliances around the globe. In recent months we’ve tracked an antibody pact with UK biotech Oxford BioTherapeutics, heavily weighted to biobucks as is common in discovery deals. And they went back to the China well for a new deal with Innovent on small cell lung cancer that cost $80 million in upfront cash. Paying $1 billion for the off-the-shelf CAR-T tech at Poseida amounted to a small bolt-on in this world. Roche paid $2.7 billion for Carmot, and had some positive early data to exhibit last year. A lot of this will sour or fizzle out. TIGIT was once a hot prospect, but it’s all been bad news on that front. You win some, you lose some in Big Pharma. Roche has been winning enough to stay on top, but the pressure is always on. The big picture: Pascal Soriot took plenty of painful shots during his early years as CEO of a woeful AstraZeneca — including more than a couple from me — with each setback cause for fresh concern. Slowly building a slate of giant franchises in oncology, and buying Alexion to beef up earnings, ended the fretting. By the end of 2024, AstraZeneca’s top execs could boast of full-year revenue growth of 21%. Industry buzz has Soriot spending big chunks of every year in China, where the company has been working to make a confrontation with the government into a commercial speed bump, hoping to continue to romp and stomp while using its international status and UK headquarters to steer clear of the showdown between the US and China. And it recently underscored the connection by unveiling plans for an expansion of its R&D work in China. Its growing commercial success with proven oncology drugs has spurred Soriot to invest heavily in the pipeline, stretching past cancer into other fields, like obesity. Five years ago, AstraZeneca shelled out $6 billion for R&D in 2019. In 2024, that tally had more than doubled as AstraZeneca surged from a cash-strapped player to an industry leader in research, trailing only Merck as the US outfit urgently tries to engineer a replacement set of drugs for an aging Keytruda franchise. Quite a few analysts are ready to offer their thumbs-up for AstraZeneca’s progress, but the question now is likely to center on whether AstraZeneca can keep its winning streak on track. Case in point: Camizestrant has been built into a $5 billion+ annual prospect. Some observers are ready to sign off on a blockbuster future for the oral SERD drug, especially after a recent Phase 3 win, but temper the enthusiasm with somewhat lower sales expectations. Baxdrostat also gets star billing, as Soriot touts “more than 90 late-stage trials underway with an average non-risk adjusted peak year revenue per trial of $1 billion.” The focus now is on performance in the clinic, but AstraZeneca’s financial results give it considerable range to consider more deals. Soriot picked up baxdrostat — exploring a new mechanism of action for hypertension that investigators have been exploring for close to 20 years — in a $1.8 billion deal for CinCor two years ago. And the pharma giant has helped blaze the BD path through China, leaving it in a position to scoop up fresh assets at discount prices. R&D risk is always huge, but investors have liked the odds. $AZN is up 16% over the past year. The big picture: With biosimilar competition ramping up this year for Stelara, one of J&J’s mainstay mega-franchises ($10.4 billion in 2024), the pharma giant needs to rack up some regulatory wins from the late-stage pipeline. The company’s R&D group breathed a sigh of relief when icotrokinra, its big program for IBD brought in from Protagonist, recently delivered — at least on the major points we could see in the company statement — in an important mid-stage trial of the oral IL-23 therapy. J&J execs, who have been slowly unfolding a pipeline-in-a-product strategy for this drug, believe icotrokinra can be a $5 billion-a-year earner, putting it at the tip of the big phalanx of R&D projects now in the pipeline. Another late-stage drug that gets a lot of attention at J&J is nipocalimab for generalized myasthenia gravis, which has nabbed breakthrough drug status at the FDA as it looks for an OK. And there’s a new fast-track designation for this drug in moderate-to-severe Sjögren’s disease. J&J is a behemoth with a long list of marketed drugs, a fact that comforts risk-averse investors. But the churn tends to deter anyone looking for some quick upside. Its medtech group spent $3.7 billion on R&D last year, helping maintain a stable of products that deliver on the bottom line. That helps keep the numbers steady. And it helps when one-time blockbusters-to-be — I’m talking about aticaprant here — flounders in its Phase 3. J&J had slated the anti-depressant in the $1 billion to $5 billion category, up until a few weeks ago when the drug giant wrote it off for insufficient efficacy. Anyone who’s been following depression R&D for the past 20 years wouldn’t have been too surprised to see yet another Phase 3 fail here. But neuro is still surging on increased confidence that scientists can deliver major drugs for unmet needs. For J&J, the belief helped inspire the Intra-Cellular Therapies buyout for $14.6 billion during JPM, finally breaking the year-plus drought of M&A deals that broke the $5 billion barrier. That deal, like the top drugs in its pipeline, underscores a well-known fact about J&J. The company is a global player in R&D — helping break the mold on China deals when it picked up the cancer drug Carvykti. But while the company can be a world-class drug picker, it’s not known for discovery work. J&J has also long been operating under a cloud brought on by its talc settlement talks, where the numbers people have set aside billions and appear to be close to finally completing a deal to shunt talc into a subsidiary and settle up with the bulk of the lawsuits. It’s manageable, but after 16 years and thousands of suits, J&J’s investors would like to move on. Following its spinout of the consumer division, J&J is on an R&D path — sticking with diseases its researchers understand well — it’s likely to follow for years. And that will keep BD busy. The big picture: AbbVie’s story in recent years has centered primarily around its fierce development and then commercialization of Rinvoq and Skyrizi to bridge its way past the revenue gorge created by Humira’s slow-motion loss of exclusivity. Once the biggest drug in the world, Humira is being steadily eclipsed by biosimilars, but the R&D group has kept the ball rolling with new studies to expand their pair of cash cows. The Botox buyout remains another key storyline as AbbVie proves yet again that it has an excellent set of marketing skills. Mission accomplished on the big moves, which isn’t to be underestimated. That may not add up to be the most exciting R&D story in biopharma in 2025, but it has certainly kept investors happy as AbbVie worked through a top-level executive transition and began to try kickstarting some fresh enthusiasm with a few ambitious deals. AbbVie took a major stab at neuroscience when it bought out Cerevel a couple of years ago for $8.7 billion , landing a lead asset in the field. But that strategy largely came a cropper recently with the failure of emraclidine, once intended to help change the standard for treating schizophrenia. Big Pharma has been making a few careful moves in neuro, but the unknowns are still legion, and the risks are extremely high. Roche’s setback on prasinezumab for Parkinson’s in late 2024 underscored that universal truth. AbbVie is still talking up the prospects of tavapadon as it racks up Phase 3 wins, but the upside isn’t as great, as far as the analysts are concerned. AbbVie was a late arrival to the obesity scene, talking up its potential for less frequent dosing and relatively competitive weight loss data with Gubra’s amylin drug. The BD team brought that in for $350 million upfront. There are some ADCs that the R&D group thinks highly of and a host of low-cost early-stage deals intended to raise its prospects for the future. For now, though, AbbVie is clearly relying on its marketing muscle and experienced research groups to keep building key franchises — which it is really, really good at. The jury’s out on whether AbbVie can add some major new franchises to grow the company faster. But they have time now. The big picture: Every time a CEO or biotech investor starts making the case for more M&A, often on background, they inevitably point to Bristol Myers as the poster child for Big Pharma pipeline demand. It faces huge looming patent losses — let’s start with Opdivo — and has a couple of years to wait for the kind of registrational data needed for its most promising late-stage drugs. The pharma giant has certainly been a player in the M&A club, snapping up Karuna ( $14 billion ), RayzeBio ( $4.1 billion for a radiopharmaceutical drug in a hotly contested arena) and Mirati ( $5.8 billion for KRAS) along the way. But recent moves aimed at cutting costs while boosting work in Phase 3 underscore just how tricky this can be. And all the buzz about its need for pricey buyouts hummed right along through a muted year of dealmaking in 2024. By all accounts, a few analysts on the Street seem satisfied that Cobenfy — out of Karuna — is on track to a blockbuster future, starting with schizophrenia and potentially expanding into Alzheimer’s. But its launch late last year didn’t come close to satisfying the skeptics rooting for more BD — which has been encouraged by a set of execs ready and willing to talk up their expectations on the acquisitions side of the business. Among the drugs in late-stage work, you’ll find new multiple myeloma therapies, which Samit Hirawat talked up in the last quarterly run-down. “ … It is very important to continue to develop small molecules, which are easy to deliver and can be combined with the standard of care therapies. And that’s exactly where iberdomide, mezigdomide sit,” he added, highlighting head-to-heads with pomalidomide (Pomalyst) — facing near-term generic competition — and Revlimid — already losing ground to copycats. Overall, costs have been headed up in R&D at Bristol Myers, and with all hands on deck for a Phase 3 revival of the portfolio, the pharma giant is poised to keep pouring money into drug development. The big picture: The CEO/R&D chief duo of David Ricks and Daniel Skovronsky took home the big prize with the successful launch of the drug juggernaut Zepbound/Mounjaro, which has emerged as the leading obesity/type 2 diabetes treatment in a world hungry for effective fat busters. They aced the main prize in the GLP-1+ field with their own particular take, and they are following up with additional studies to prove efficacy where it can gain reimbursements — while following up with an oral that is aimed at cementing this category in its favor for years to come. That storyline has proved enormously persuasive with investors, as Eli Lilly’s share price has grown 64% over the past two years and its biggest supporters among the analysts glow with enormous projections. But with that much money on the table, it’s no major surprise to see Novo Nordisk double down on its own obesity franchise — a story that’s had a few problems — while the competition aims at doing it better with fewer side effects and a more appealing form of administration has grown into a mob of biopharma companies. It does make you wonder where peak obesity lies. But Lilly is determined to hold onto the lead, no matter how rough this ride may get. And it promises to pay off in the tens of billions per year. To that end is a prospective 2026 launch of orforglipron, an oral GLP-1. Analysts have been on high alert for upcoming T2 data, which Lilly forecasts should look good in comparison to Novo’s semaglutide. That’s the key competitive number they’re looking for. There’s also the multi-targeted retatrutide in the pipeline to consider, where investigators tracked a 12% weight loss in a mid-stage study. Novo certainly has, inking a deal with China’s United Laboratories for an early-stage rival treatment as it looks to be competitive in a range of targets aside from GLP-1. That deal also underscores how Big Pharma can steal a march on a rival drug by scouting R&D programs in China. There’s also remternetug for Alzheimer’s, a quarterly injection to remove amyloid plaque, versus the monthly injection their approved drug donanemab (Kisunla) uses. Analysts once projected billions in upside for the new Alzheimer’s drugs making their way into the market, but skeptics wonder if their modest benefits for patients will win doctors and large numbers of patients over. Lilly’s late-stage cardio drug lepodisiran often earns a mention from leadership, along with their oral follow-up muvalaplin. Then there’s the KRAS contender olomorasib. Add in the occasional buyout — like Morphic — and you’ll get a picture of an ambitious pipeline funded with growing revenue from an effectively marketed drug with the kind of legs that can sustain a company like this for years to come. Given the company’s credibility in drug development, you’re likely to agree that Eli Lilly should never be underestimated. The big picture: By the end of 2022, Pfizer’s rep was pure gold. There was a king’s ransom in revenue for the multinational operation as it capitalized big time on its rapidly successful alliance with BioNTech for their mega-franchise mRNA vaccine to combat Covid. And CEO Albert Bourla basked in the glow of accolades for helping save the world — with the exception of some stray trolls. Then the world turned, vaccine demand plummeted far past most projections and Pfizer was left to pick up the pieces with a revised R&D game plan and revenue that only modestly improved in 2024 after bottoming out at $59.5 billion in ’23. Now, instead of continuing accolades for a truly historic vaccine rollout, analysts were reminded of Pfizer’s long track record for hit-and-miss performance in R&D and commercial ops. And it remains a big player in vaccines, where the long reach of the new Trump administration and its vaccine critics has extended to scrubbing out references to mRNA. Those persistent doubts led Pfizer to recruit Citi analyst — and longtime Pfizer doubter — Andrew Baum to help sell the company’s innovation plans. And he likely is more aware than most of just how hard that is as Pfizer looks to largely tread water on the numbers side this year. Buying Seagen set its course for a higher profile in oncology, which was on display as Bourla cheered their late-stage programs in his recent assessment of what’s ahead. Bourla earlier tapped oncology chief Chris Boshoff to take over R&D from Mikael Dolsten, signaling that it’s relying on a slate of cancer drugs to help replace Ibrance and Xtandi as those big blockbusters lose exclusivity in a couple of years — mere ticks of the clock in drug development cycles. So it’s no surprise to see company execs talking up prospects for the CDK4 inhibitor atirmociclib, now in a Phase 3 breast cancer study. But they took a nasty hit a few weeks ago when vepdegestrant, its protein degrader partnered with Arvinas, fell short in another breast cancer study. Baum also has his work cut out for him talking up Pfizer’s big plans for their oral obesity drug danuglipron, with analysts shaking their heads over a twice-daily dosing as rivals make progress on that front with drugs that may be much better positioned. Its cachexia drug ponsegromab, meanwhile, has had its late-stage development plan trimmed. Underscoring the doubts about Pfizer, analysts haven’t liked watching its sales of RSV vaccine Abrysvo plunge in a turbulent market for everyone involved. The pharma player has to perform consistently on sales if it expects to overcome the skeptics at this point. Add it all up and Pfizer looks like it will continue to operate under a cloud for some time to come, needing to establish a solid track record of significant new approvals and reliable marketing success. In the meantime, look for the company to keep shelling out big dividends to keep investors happy. The big picture: Under the watchful eye of chairman Joerg Reinhardt, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan has always proved ready to bring out the scalpel — or the axe — to trim away at its enormous global structure. So no analyst would have been surprised to see Novartis cutting away at its commercial ops in anticipation of a looming patent loss for its heavyweight therapy Entresto. A cliff like that would make many pharmas amp up R&D spending in a big way. Novartis actually cut back in 2024. The other Basel-based pharma giant is playing this one carefully for Wall Street, defending what’s left of patent exclusivity while signaling an LOE for Entresto in the middle of the year. It’s boosted revenue from Entresto in advance of the inevitable decline of its star drug — like pumping money from a dying well — and it’s pushing its other portfolio drugs hard, looking to make up for its blockbuster losses. That push includes building the franchises for Fabhalta, which just won its third approval, along with other drugs like Leqvio and Scemblix. Novartis has maintained a big focus in R&D on its radioligand portfolio, along with cell and gene therapies and RNA. Its late-stage pipeline includes OAV101 IT for spinal muscular atrophy, using a new delivery method aimed at widening the patient population for Zolgensma and now lining up for regulatory approvals. And there’s a big emphasis on votoplam (PTC518) for Huntington’s, in-licensed from PTC. Earlier this year Narasimhan and his execs spent a fair amount of time talking up the prospects of votoplam, which has to complete a mid-stage program successfully before Novartis takes over Phase 3. Huntington’s is wide open for anyone who can move the bar on this fatal neurodegenerative disease. But it’s also incredibly difficult to master, as Novartis knows from its own recent failure in the field with branaplam. Sage has also hit the wall here. But Novartis feels it’s learned a lot from its own setback — enough to believe that they can take the command here. Novartis, despite a busy pipeline overall, has a pretty thin set of late-stage drugs to tout, which led the Wall Street Journal to ask where Narasimhan expects to get its next round of drugs as Novartis sets out to perform with annual revenue increases in the mid-single digit range. Novartis spent a billion in cash on its Huntington’s alliance, underscoring just how careful they are with the R&D budget, which fell year-over-year in 2024. Not surprisingly, he centered on “smaller deals” while insisting he won’t make a move in obesity unless the BD team can line up something particularly distinctive. He also counts himself happy with their 2022/2023 reorganization. Happy, though, doesn’t mean content to leave things be. Novartis is always turning over stones to see where else it can cut. It adds up. And it’s shown zero interest in doing anything splashy. Its recent buyouts underscore that careful approach: MorphoSys was on the outer edge of the $1 billion to $3 billion range where Novartis prefers to play in M&A. At Novartis, financial discipline is a core value. And it’s part of the buttoned-down Swiss approach that isn’t expected to change. The big picture: There are a lot of moving parts at GSK, and not all are headed in the right direction. Its RSV vaccine sales have been on a roller coaster ride. The UK pharma’s big bet on Shingrix was dinged by slipping sales last quarter, all while the Trump administration helped cast a pall over vaccines in general that may well endure for four years. The vaccine market in China has also been wobbly, as Merck can attest to with Gardasil. On the other hand, GSK once again has high hopes for Blenrep, which was yanked from the market in 2022 after flunking a confirmatory study. The IL-5 therapy depemokimab has excited great expectations for £3 billion in annual sales, following up on the success of their asthma drug Nucala. All the while the BD group keeps turning up new deals that bolster their case without weighing heavily on the numbers side. And CEO Emma Walmsley, now an eight-year veteran in the top spot, is promising to move its top line to $50 billion, moving from £31.4 billion last year to 40 billion — a 27% increase in seven years. A lot of that increase will depend on how GSK’s commercial arm can capitalize on new therapeutics like their newly approved antibiotic gepotidacin. Commercial chief Luke Miels has cited analysts’ estimates for up to $1.25 billion for that program, but not everyone is nearly that enthusiastic about the near-term chances for a new antibiotic that could take years to gain a firm footing in the market. GSK has never been flashy. The stock is down about 10% over the past year. If you pull back over a three-year timeline, since GSK spun off its commercial group, the stock is down 19%, all of which has some analysts wondering if the large-cap company may once again become a target of the activist crowd. The big picture: I met Paul Hudson in Paris five years ago, when he stepped in as the new Sanofi CEO after a lengthy dry spell in R&D. Since then, he’s proven time and again that he’s ready and willing to invest in drug research, despite the inevitable ups and downs associated with bigger pipelines. A bit more than two years ago he was concentrating on what he called three major blockbuster candidates (€5 billion-plus): The OX40 drug amlitelimab, frexalimab and SAR441566, an oral TNFR1. And he was ready to sacrifice some profitability to move a pipeline where he counted another nine blockbuster candidates, mostly in immunology and inflammation. He kept that promise, with a boost in R&D spending of 14% in 2024 as Sanofi joined the industry migration out of consumer — staking its future on its ability to push new drugs to big futures. A few days ago Leerink noted that Sanofi was still juggling OX40 drugs to see whether amlitelimab, or its OX40L/TNF bispecific nanobody, would go into Phase 3 for hidradenitis suppurativa. That drug is in Phase 3 in atopic dermatitis and in Phase 2 in asthma and several other indications. Frexalimab failed a Phase 2 for Sjögren’s syndrome last year, narrowing its potential. That came with a Phase 3 failure of venglustat — another one of Hudson’s original top prospects — which nicked off part of its attraction as well. The next tier, where Hudson forecasts sales of €2 billion to €5 billion includes: Sanofi had one huge ace in the hole when Hudson took over the hand. It could rely on big sales of Dupixent ($13 billion in global sales last year) to keep it going in search of a new portfolio. And their marketing expertise in the field — built thanks to their alliance with Regeneron, which did the heavy lifting on the innovation side — would benefit any new drugs to warrant a regulatory approval while easing Aubagio out as generics took hold. The big picture: After hustling its way to the front of the GLP-1 line, Novo Nordisk is now all about the fierce rivalry it’s facing from Eli Lilly while positioning itself against any other entries that could sap its brilliant future in obesity. And that is no easy task, as execs have learned over the past year, while its stock plummeted 45% after peaking out as an obesity darling last summer. It turns out that superheating the stock price set up a supercooling series of events. After seeing explosive growth in revenue last year, Novo’s executive team is counseling analysts about a more modest growth path in 2025 as Eli Lilly brings the heat and pricing pressure grows. One of the big jobs they had to complete ASAP was being able to make enough semaglutide to satisfy the market and get off the drug shortage list — battling back against compounders who were carving up market share. While Novo Nordisk hasn’t been keeping up with average R&D spend among the top 15 — which generally comes in around the low 20s as a percentage of revenue — even 16.5% allowed for a 50% hike in R&D spending last year. In recent weeks Novo not only reorganized its growing R&D ops, it also struck back-to-back deals for new obesity drugs in an effort to stay ahead of the mob out to grab a share of the action. Now diabetes/obesity/MASH will be one R&D cluster focus, with cardio/chronic kidney disease and rare diseases making up the other two legs of its three-pronged research strategy. And like every other company in the R&D 15, it will rely on AI to make better bets on experimental drugs. Normally, that might make an intriguing proposition for investors, but analysts have been more focused on repeated setbacks in the clinic than the prospective benefits of a revised strategy. Novo Nordisk recently aired lackluster data for CagriSema, its follow-up drug that is a combination of the amylin analog cagrilintide and GLP-1. One of the big downsides to GLP-1 is the side effects of the drug, which the amylin analog is thought to limit while building weight loss. But it barely edged a high dose of Zepbound, leaving Lilly in the lead of the expectations game. And it earlier fell far short of the company’s stated expectation that it could trigger 25% weight loss. There’s lots more on the way, but Novo Nordisk has a lot riding on a head-to-head between CagriSema and Zepbound. Those data will come later this year, and failure is not an option. The big picture: Amgen has added a meaningful amount to its R&D budget, but it’s still hanging on in the second tier of the R&D 15. As always with CEO Bob Bradway, there’s a well-thought-out strategy that he’s pursuing — and selling to investors as the best path forward. And as always, the stakes are incredibly high. While looking to build on some existing drug franchises, Bradway once again used his Q4/2024 call with analysts to put the spotlight squarely on Amgen’s top prospect in the pipeline. This year it’s MariTide, an obesity drug that is looking to find a patch of marketing sun in the Big Kahuna of all drug rivalries. But it’s one tough sale. A few months ago, in a story covered by Max Bayer at Endpoints News , Amgen saw its stock take a dive on positive mid-stage data that illustrated a 20% weight loss for the drug. Once upon a time, you could have parlayed that into star status on Wall Street. But no more. It looked a little second-rate compared to the megablockbuster leaders in obesity, Novo Nordisk and a romping, stomping Eli Lilly, even if it can be effective at lower dosing. Amgen has a new take on the glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor, blocking it instead of activating it. But it may just be the amped-up GLP-1 component that is delivering the benefit. Amgen has a huge Phase 3 for this one to answer all its questions, but you can see a few analysts are taking to the sidelines on this one, not quite won over by the dosing and design. On the upside: Any significant piece of obesity can be huge, even if in this case it’s relatively small compared to the leaders’ market share. On the downside: A big lead counts for a lot when you’re breaking new ground in therapeutic research, and Amgen definitely does not have the lead here. Amgen, though, will stick to its story. While it’s far from the top 10 in terms of R&D spending, the company has always punched above its weight when it comes to touting an experimental drug. So it was no surprise to see ex-Novartis vet Jay Bradner pick up his first Q4 call at Amgen by keeping his sights set on MariTide. But Bradner is also quick to highlight other late-stage prospects, topped by its Lp(a) drug olpasiran — now one of several drugs in the mix for this target — while waiting on the FDA decision for Uplizna. There’s also the Phase 3 program for rocatinlimab in atopic dermatitis, which has the potential to pursue other pathways, provided the data are strong. That could prove a major caveat, though, While Tim Anderson sees Amgen as 12 to 18 months ahead of Sanofi’s rival OX40 mab amlitelimab, he called one of the mid-stage data cuts “underwhelming” compared to Dupixent, hampered by some safety concerns. The big picture: Gilead has been anchored by HIV for years now, able to take multiple hits on the R&D side without triggering too much angst among investors. And Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day — who celebrated six years in the top post — has been winning over some mild converts to the cause recently, including Tim Anderson. Anderson, like the rank-and-file investor group, is comforted by Biktarvy’s big role in the HIV arena, where Gilead mints money. And he’s intrigued by the upside of a couple of late-stage plays, including anito-cel, which Gilead — partnered with Arcellx — believes can cut down Carvykti from J&J and Legend. That depends a lot on the safety profile that has been emerging in clinical trials. But at this stage, Gilead has seen a slate of oncology prospects go down in flames, which hasn’t done much to increase confidence in a cancer drug now. On the other hand, maybe they are due for a win. If they can cut into line with Carvykti, which is linked with Parkinson’s and other serious side effects, it has the potential to earn billions. And that would push them to their goal of getting 30% of revenue from oncology, rather than continue to rely so heavily on its longtime dominance in HIV. But there are some big ifs along the way, including the developers’ plans to look for an accelerated approval of the CAR-T. The big picture: Regeneron was close to making the R&D 15 in 2023, and it made it through last year with a surge of research spending in 2024 that slipped ahead of Takeda, based on their last four quarters. Regeneron arrives as the only company that still counters its two remarkable founders in the top posts: Science chief George Yancopoulos and CEO Len Schleifer. They got to this point by creating a company that is frequently held up as the gold standard of biotech startups, building two giant franchises in Dupixent (partnered with Sanofi) and Eylea. Now Eylea has biosimilar trouble, but Dupixent is still romping and stomping on the numbers side, giving Regeneron a nice runway to build new drugs. Tim Anderson at Bank of America counts two key drugs in the late-stage pipeline, and one to watch now in Phase 2. There’s fianlimab, a LAG3 treatment in frontline melanoma that hasn’t received a ton of attention. Anderson notes that Regeneron is several years behind Bristol Myers in LAG3, with 2030 sales set under the $900 million mark. LAG3 has had a number of problems in the clinic, though, and the jury is definitely out on what the potential is here. And there’s IL-33 mAB itepekimab, also partnered with Sanofi. Not the next-gen successor to Dupixent as once billed, Anderson still sees blockbuster potential. Then there’s trevogrumab — an anti-myostatin — and the anti-activin A garetosmab for obesity, in Phase 2 development with a host of rivals in the clinic. Of more immediate importance commercially, Regeneron has tagged linvoseltamab , its BCMAxCD3 drug delayed for manufacturing reasons, as a likely near-term entry for multiple myeloma. Sales projections are relatively muted, though. There’s also a CRISPR drug partnered with Intellia, NTLA-2001 for ATTR amyloidosis . Of everyone on the R&D 15, Regeneron is reinvesting a larger percentage of its revenue than any other player. Thirty-seven years after the biotech was created, the founders still see themselves on the cutting edge of drug research.