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ALETH / LIFESCI-BRIEF / 2025-10-17 / ELLISON’S EIT TO INVEST AN EXTRA $1.2BN IN OXFORD

Aleth LifeSci Brief: 13-17 Oct 2025

Ellison's EIT to invest an extra $1.2bn in Oxford

In this edition

Monday 13 October

AstraZeneca agreed to sell its medicines to every US state Medicaid programme at most-favoured-nation prices, matching the lowest paid by any developed country.

President Trump announced the deal at the White House on 10 October, making AstraZeneca the second large drugmaker after Pfizer to accept the administration’s terms. The company will also sell direct to American patients at a discount off list price through the planned TrumpRx platform, and will guarantee those prices on new medicines it brings to market. In return it secured relief from the threatened Section 232 pharmaceutical tariffs, alongside the $50bn US manufacturing and research commitment it had already set out.

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Novo Nordisk is about to learn whether semaglutide can slow Alzheimer’s disease.

Topline results are imminent from evoke and evoke+, two Phase 3 trials in thousands of people with early-stage disease, an outcome Novo has itself called a “lottery ticket”. A positive readout would open a large new indication for semaglutide at a point when Novo’s obesity franchise is losing ground to Eli Lilly.

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Bristol Myers Squibb agreed to buy Orbital Therapeutics for $1.5bn, moving into in vivo CAR-T.

Orbital, a preclinical company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is developing therapies that reprogram immune cells inside the patient’s body rather than in a laboratory. Its lead candidate, OTX-201, uses circular RNA delivered in lipid nanoparticles to encode a CD19-targeted CAR. BMS is paying a premium for a company with no clinical-stage assets, joining several large drugmakers chasing in vivo approaches as a cheaper, faster route to cell therapy.

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Tuesday 14 October

The Financial Times reported that Mirador Therapeutics had raised $400m, ranking it among the largest biotech venture rounds of 2025.

The financing was read as a sign that investor appetite for precision-medicine platforms is recovering, after a first half in which venture money into the sector fell sharply.

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The FDA cleared Roche’s Elecsys pTau181 blood test to help rule out Alzheimer’s in primary care, the first such test for that setting.

The test, developed with Eli Lilly, measures phosphorylated tau 181 in plasma and offers a less invasive alternative to spinal taps and PET scans for ruling out amyloid pathology. Roche reported a 97.9% negative predictive value in an early-disease, low-prevalence population reflective of primary care. Clearance widens access to diagnosis as amyloid-targeting drugs reach more patients.

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The FDA is on track for its fewest new drug and biologic approvals since 2022, according to an Endpoints News analysis.

More than a dozen companies are still awaiting decisions on new molecular entities before the year ends, so the final tally could move. The slowdown bears on the whole sector’s near-term pipeline outlook.

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Larry Ellison committed a further £890m to his Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford.

The institute announced plans on 14 October for an expanded campus at the Oxford Science Park, growing its footprint to around 2 million square feet with room for up to 7,000 staff and labs spanning generative biology, plant biology, AI and robotics, pathogens, and life-sciences materials. The Times reported the £890m figure, which adds to Ellison’s earlier funding for the Oxford institute.

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Wednesday 15 October

Kailera Therapeutics raised $600m in a Series B to develop obesity drugs licensed from China’s Jiangsu Hengrui.

The round, led by Bain Capital, is among the year’s largest private biotech raises. It funds a global Phase 3 programme for KAI-9531, an injectable GLP-1/GIP receptor agonist, and moves an oral GLP-1 candidate that showed weight loss in a China Phase 2 into global trials. Kailera’s assets originate from Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals.

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Johnson & Johnson raised its full-year sales guidance and said it will separate its orthopaedics business.

Reporting third-quarter results on 14 October, J&J posted sales up 6.8% to $24bn. The orthopaedics unit, which will operate as DePuy Synthes and generated about $9.2bn in 2024 sales, is to be spun off within 18 to 24 months, leaving the company focused on innovative medicine and its remaining medtech.

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AstraZeneca’s plan for a direct New York listing won the backing of leading proxy advisers ahead of its shareholder vote.

The company wants to replace its US depositary receipts with a direct NYSE listing while keeping its London listing. The Times reported that advisory groups including PIRC and Glass Lewis recommended supporting the proposal. AstraZeneca is the largest company in the FTSE 100, and adviser support makes approval at the vote more likely.

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The CDC is set to lose about a quarter of its staff once the latest layoffs take effect, its employees’ union said.

The cuts land amid the federal government shutdown, during which some earlier firings at the agency had been rescinded.

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Thursday 16 October

More than 3,000 people in the UK are suing Johnson & Johnson, alleging it knowingly sold talcum powder contaminated with asbestos.

The claim, brought by the law firm KP Law and filed at the High Court in London, is the first wave of talc litigation in Britain and covers products sold between 1965 and 2023. KP Law estimates the compensation claim at more than £1bn. J&J denies the allegations, saying its products never contained asbestos. The case extends to the UK courts a litigation that has already cost the company billions in US settlements.

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Nordic Capital and Permira raised their takeover offer for Bavarian Nordic to 250 kroner a share, calling it best and final.

The consortium’s earlier 233-kroner bid, which valued the vaccine maker at around $3bn, had failed to win enough acceptances. The offer period was extended to 5 November.

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Novo Nordisk agreed a deal worth up to $2.1bn for Omeros’s stalled complement drug zaltenibart.

Omeros paused development of the MASP-3 inhibitor, aimed at paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria, in May because it could not fund the Phase 3 programme. Novo gains exclusive global rights and plans a Phase 3 in that disease, paying $240m upfront with the rest in milestones and royalties.

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Friday 17 October

Trump struck a deal with Germany’s Merck KGaA to cut US prices of its fertility medicines in return for tariff relief.

Announced at the White House on 16 October, the agreement covers IVF drugs sold by Merck’s EMD Serono unit, including Gonal-f, Ovidrel and Cetrotide, to be offered at reduced prices through the planned TrumpRx platform. EMD Serono will also apply most-favoured-nation prices to state Medicaid and to new products. It is the administration’s first pricing pact tied to fertility treatment, ground Trump had promised to make cheaper.

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Novo Nordisk shares fell after Trump said Ozempic’s US price would be “much lower” once his administration finishes negotiating with the company.

Trump made the remark at the White House on 16 October, floating a figure as low as $150 a month against a US list price near $1,000. Novo has not confirmed the state of any talks, and no terms were set. Shares in Novo and Eli Lilly dropped on the comment.

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China’s Hansoh Pharma licensed a colorectal cancer drug to Roche in a deal worth up to $1.45bn.

Roche gains exclusive rights outside greater China to HS-20110, a CDH17-targeting antibody-drug conjugate in early clinical trials for colorectal and other solid tumours. Hansoh receives $80m upfront plus development, regulatory and sales milestones and royalties. The deal continues a run of Chinese biotechs out-licensing oncology assets to large Western drugmakers.

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