Novo Nordisk is paying Valo Health $60 million up front to gain three preclinical cardiovascular disease programs. Milestone payments for those programs and others covered under the artificial intelligence drug discovery pact could reach up to $2.7 billion.

If we want to support people with obesity, the weight loss debate must stop conflating obesity prevention with obesity treatment. Instead, we should focus on the tools that best solve the needs of people where they are – just as we would for cancer or diabetes – by making the most effective treatments possible available.

Novartis became the seventh drugmaker to legally challenge the White House’s Medicare drug pricing negotiation program. The company filed its lawsuit three days after HHS announced the first 10 drugs that were selected for the program — its heart failure medication Entresto was one on the list. HHS can expect to face more lawsuits from the manufacturers of the 10 drugs it named last week, experts have warned.

Intarcia Therapeutics’ GLP-1 agonist product candidate for type 2 diabetes now belongs to i2o Therapeutics, which will make the treatment’s case for approval at an upcoming FDA advisory committee meeting. The startup’s $46 million Series A financing is one of several recently announced funding rounds.

Novo Nordisk is expanding its cardiometabolic drug pipeline with the acquisition of Embark Biotech, a startup developing drugs for a novel target that can suppress appetite and boost calorie burning in cells. Embark’s science comes University of Copenhagen research on a novel fat cell target.

Amazon Pharmacy announced Tuesday that it is launching automatic coupons for more than 15 insulin and diabetes care brands. The move, while incremental, solves a major pain point for consumers with diabetes, as many struggle to afford insulin products.

Novo Nordisk isn’t putting all of its weight loss drug hopes in the same basket. Its acquisition of Inversago Pharma for up to $1 billion will bring a biotech whose lead drug candidate has early clinical trial data showing significant weight loss.

Novo Nordisk weight-loss drug Wegovy reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events by 20% in a large clinical trial. The company said the results support expanding the drug’s label, but the looming question is whether the data will persuade payers to cover the pricey chronic therapy.

Hospitals’ pharmacy spending is projected to rise by 3.42% next year, according to a new report. Specialty drugs, including Ozempic and Humira, as well as neurology medications are the primary drivers of this increase in pharmacy expenses.

Allurion Technologies has commercialized a gastric balloon in the form of a pill that patients swallow. But the weight loss platform from the now NYSE-listed company also includes AI-driven software that provides insights about a patient’s progress, technology with the potential for use alongside obesity drugs.

Biopharma companies are harnessing AI tools for multiple aspects of drug development such as identifying drug development targets, modeling a drug’s effect on the body, and more.

In 2020, 46.9% of all novel drugs approved by the FDA were for rare diseases, as compared to 23.5% in 2012. Investment is expected to continue trending upward, with estimates suggesting that global spending on rare disease therapies will reach $260 billion by the end of 2025.

Patients are driving the push away from needles, and there are a number of novel approaches attempting to solve the difficult task of transforming biologics into orally administered treatments.

Pfizer and Flagship Pioneering are partnering in a drug research alliance leveraging the capabilities of the more than 40 biotech startups in the venture capital firm’s portfolio. The new partners aim to develop drugs for unmet needs, including those in broad patient populations.

A new cohort of startups has graduated from PharmStars, a digital health accelerator. This latest group focused on women’s health and health equity.

Eli Lilly’s retatrutide led to an average weight reduction of 24.2%, or 58 pounds, after 48 weeks of treatment in Phase 2 testing. Based on these results, Lilly now plans a comprehensive Phase 3 program that will evaluate the once-weekly injectable drug in weight reduction as well as various complications of obesity.

Eli Lilly’s partnership with Verve Therapeutics covers the development of a preclinical therapy addressing a protein associated with cardiovascular disease risk. The in vivo gene-editing therapy is a potential one-time treatment.

Marstacimab, a Pfizer drug for both hemophilia A and B, met the main goal of a Phase 3 study and the company now plans to discuss the data with regulators. The Pfizer drug could beat to the market a Novo Nordisk drug that addresses the same novel target.

Employers should be looking at obesity as a chronic condition and focus on weight management solutions over weight loss solutions, said Parin Chikani, medical account director for managed markets at Novo Nordisk. He made these comments Tuesday at the Midwest Business Group on Health conference in Chicago.

America’s Health Insurance Plans’ new campaign aims to show how health insurers are working to create savings for Americans while also targeting Big Pharma (or more specifically drug manufacturers) for increasing drug costs. The ads will be distributed on TV, social media and streaming services.

Competition to claim a market that could be worth $100 billion a year for drugmakers alone has triggered a wave of advertising that has provoked the concern of regulators and doctors worldwide.

Demand for alternative drug delivery methods has the potential to reshape therapeutic markets and improve clinical outcomes. New innovations, especially oral alternatives, are poised to drive broad changes across the entire sector.

StartUp Health’s presence at ViVE will highlight the launch of its Health Transformer University and the addition of Helmsley Charitable Trust as an investor. Its pavilion will showcase 16 health tech companies and include panel discussions on remote patient monitoring, automation and more.

Novo Nordisk can afford the price cuts prices to several branded and non-branded insulins. Flattening revenue for the pharmaceutical giant’s insulin products is offset by demand for diabetes and obesity drugs from its semaglutide franchise, which continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

GV led Chroma Medicine’s Series B financing round, which the biotech will apply toward epigenetic medicines that could offer advantages over other editing technologies. Other recent financings include rounds from Cargo Therapeutics and Transcend Therapeutics.

Eli Lilly is slashing prices for its insulin products and capping a patient’s monthly out-of-pocket costs at $35. But a financial analyst notes that the company can afford to cut prices on older medicines like insulin because the strategy will help it maintain pricing power for innovative new drugs.

Hemab Therapeutics will apply its Series B financing toward clinical development of its lead drug candidate, a potential treatment for Glanzmann thrombasthenia. The capital will also support the rest its pipeline addressing rare bleeding and thrombotic diseases with no approved therapies.

High prices have drawn other critics, as well, including President Joe Biden. He renewed his call for a broad price cap during his annual State of the Union address. Pharma companies insist they have been part of the solution.

Despite challenging financial market conditions, clinical-stage Structure Therapeutics was able to upsize its IPO. Much of the new cash will support its lead program, an oral small molecule that could weigh in on the diabetes and obesity indications currently dominated by blockbuster injectable medicines.

The FDA approved a change in Rybelsus’s label, allowing the drug to be used as an initial therapy for type 2 diabetes patients. The once-daily pill has already become a blockbuster product for Novo Nordisk.