A flurry of deals, several with sizable upfront payments, has energized the biotech sector in March. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s Paul Bonanos assesses last week’s deals by Merck, which is laying out $6.7 billion to acquire Terns, and Gilead, which is buying Ouro for about $1.7 billion up front.
Gilead’s deal comes as the Foster City, Calif.-based biotech is looking to defend its position in HIV while resetting in inflammation and immunology and growing its oncology footprint through business development. BioCentury’s Lauren Martz analyzes the company’s pipeline following her recent conversation with CMO Dietmar Berger.
Turning to the U.K., Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn details her conversation with CEO of MHRA, Lawrence Tallon, regarding what new reforms in the U.K. mean for drug developers and how he views initiatives helping to build the sector and place the U.K. in the race to become a destination for clinical trials.

Rates for the 26th Bio€quity Europe May 4-6 in Prague increase after this week. Register now as a delegate or apply to join the 2026 Presenting Company Class before the conference sells out.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/658974

#BiotechMA #BiopharmaStrategy #DrugDevelopment #UKBiotech #ClinicalTrials

00:00 - Introduction
01:09 - Merck Buying Terns
04:31 - Gilead, Galapagos Deal
09:35 - Growing Gilead
19:20 - Tallon's Vision for U.K. Biotech

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at podcasts@biocentury.com.

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After 20 years of platform building and resets, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals is making a bid to become a large-cap biotech. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts discuss how the company has built a pipeline and set of enabling technologies that could enable a steep period of value creation based on RNAi.
The team then analyzes the $2 billion deal between Synnovation and Novartis for a pan-mutant-selective PI3Kα inhibitor. The analysts also assess where AI is integrating into the biotech venture funnel and provide insights into ultra-rare disease advocacy, FDA’s search for a successor to CBER Director Vinay Prasad, and the Trump administration’s most-favored nation (MFN) drug pricing policy.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/658892

#RNAiTherapeutics #BiotechMA #PI3KAlpha #AIDrugDiscovery #DrugPricingPolicy

00:00 - Introduction
01:14 - Bio€quity Europe
05:33 - Arrowhead
16:49 - Synnovation Novartis
20:00 - AI in Biotech Venture
27:07 - Rare Disease Advocacy
31:22 - MFN Pricing Policy

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at podcasts@biocentury.com.

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Biotechs have been pricing follow-ons at a steady pace, with some companies parlaying data into upsized deals, and others even beginning to debut on NASDAQ — but will geopolitical tensions and war in the Middle East scuttle the forward momentum? On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts take the temperature of the markets for biotech."
They also discuss last week’s late-stage epilepsy data from Xenon Pharmaceuticals, which revived the biotech’s stock and the Kv7 target.
And, in a Rare Disease Spotlight, BioCentury’s analysts discuss how Friedreich ataxia is moving into a mechanistic second act, with biotechs pivoting from stabilizing the mitochondrial damage caused by frataxin loss to developing therapies designed to fix the gene itself.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/658810

#BiotechMarkets #EpilepsyResearch #Kv7 #RareDisease #GeneTherapy

00:00 - Introduction
03:23 - Market Sentiment
09:58 - Xenon Phase III Win
18:03 - Friedreich Ataxia Pipeline

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at podcasts@biocentury.com.

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