Friday, January 2, 2026
Genmab ends lung cancer drug development
Denmark's Genmab has decided not to continue the development of a drug for cancer, acasunlimab, which had reached phase 3 testing, after a review of its medicines pipeline.
The decision to end the programme comes 18 months after Genmab's former partner for the acasunlimab, BioNTech, pulled out of the alliance on the drug, a PD-L1x4-1BB bispecific antibody that was developed using Genmab's DuoBody technology platform and BioNTech’s expertise in immunomodulatory antibodies.
The drug is designed to bring about an antitumour response by activating T-cells and natural killer cells in PD-L1-expressing tumours, and was being tested in the phase 3 ABBIL1TY NSCLC-06 study as a monotherapy and in combination with MSD's PD-1 inhibitor Keytruda (pembrolizumab) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had failed previous standard of care treatments with checkpoint inhibitors.
4-1BB, a T-cell co-stimulatory receptor also known as CD137, has long been a compelling target in cancer, with drugs targeting it triggering strong immune responses in lab and early-stage clinical testing. So far, no drugs targeting the receptor have reached the market, and several have been shelved after initial testing in human studies.
In a statement, Genmab said that the decision to shelve acasunlimab "reflects prioritisation of higher‑impact opportunities" across its late‑stage pipeline, as well as an "increasingly competitive landscape" in lung cancer.
The company's chief executive, Jan van de Winkel, said data for acasunlimab had been "encouraging", but that it has decided to focus its efforts on candidates with greater impact.
He highlighted AbbVie-partnered CD20xCD3 bispecific Epkinly (epcoritamab), Merus-partnered EGFRxLGR5 bispecific petosemtamab, and rinatabart sesutecan (Rina‑S), an FRα-directed antibody-drug conjugate that Genmab bolted on with its $1.8 billion acquisition of ProfoundBio in 2024, but which has been named in litigation between Genmab and AbbVie.
Already-marketed Epkinly is growing fast as a therapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) subtypes, with sales reaching $333 million in the third quarter of 2025, while petosemtamab made waves at the ASCO 2025 congress in head and neck cancer, and Rina-S has shown promise in ovarian cancer. All three are in various late-stage clinical studies.
"We remain committed to executing these programmes with speed and rigour," said van de Winkel. Genmab said the decision to abandon acasunlimab would not affect its 2025 financial guidance.
https://pharmaphorum.com/news/genmab-ends-lung-cancer-drug-development
Ironwood beats on 2026 outlook thanks to AbbVie-partnered Linzess
Shares of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (IRWD) added ~15% in the premarket on Friday after the company set its 2026 revenue outlook ahead of Street forecasts, citing higher net sales from Linzess, a bowel disease therapy it markets with AbbVie (ABBV).
The Boston, Massachusetts-based biotech projected Linzess net sales to reach $1.125B - $1.175B next year compared to $860M - $890M in 2026, expanding its total revenue to $450M - $475M compared to $319.5M in the consensus.
Ironwood (IRWD) said it expects net sales of the drug to rise year over year as it has lowered Linzess’s list price with effect from Jan. 1, 2026, in reaction to the “evolving health care dynamics and to support ongoing patient access.”
“We expect higher net sales in 2026 for LINZESS year-over-year, specifically driven by the elimination of the inflationary component of statutory required rebates across channels, including Medicaid, due to the decrease in list price,” the company added.
Citing higher Linzess net sales and benefits from its cost management initiatives, the company said its adjusted EBITDA could exceed $300M in 2026 compared to more than $135M last year. However, Ironwood (IRWD) maintained its 2025 revenue outlook of $290M - $310M and reported more than $200M in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the year.
Germany's Economic Collapse: 2025 In Review And What Lies Ahead
by Thomas Kolbe
Germany’s economy has endured a terrible 2025. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government has set the course for further decline in the coming year.
If German politicians’ salaries were linked to private sector growth, lawmakers would likely have to take out loans in the deeply recessive year of 2025 and compensate citizens for parliamentary inaction and ideological foolishness.
Although the term diät derives from the Latin dieta, loosely meaning “compensation,” in the context of Germany’s collapsing industry it more accurately reflects the German meaning: deserved frugality and material austerity. Economically, Germany is now facing the end of the illusion of prosperity, which follows the catastrophic policies of the government.
Shrinking Private Sector and Rising State Burden
After eight months under Chancellor Merz, the record is not just meager—it is pitiful. Assuming a 50% state quota and calculating real GDP growth of 0.2% with net new debt over 4%, the net result for 2025 is a roughly 3.8% contraction of the private sector compared to the previous year.
What is scarcely known in Berlin—likely a form of economic esoterica not taught in party seminars or union courses—is that only the private sector produces the goods and services people actually consume. It is no surprise that heavy regulation and crushing taxes—Germany is surpassed only by Belgium in the OECD in fiscal extraction—strangle private enterprise.
Investment fell roughly 6.5% below long-term averages—a quantum leap in the wrong direction, deeply impacting labor markets, public budgets, and social security. While Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil attempts to mask deficits and exemptions as mere cosmetic fixes, municipalities face a €35 billion shortfall this year.
Crisis Becomes Visible
At the lowest levels of the state, in cities and towns, the bill for decades of political mismanagement is now arriving first.
The trigger is collapsing business tax revenue, a direct result of a record number of corporate bankruptcies: 24,000 companies will have exited the market in 2025.
The labor market’s seeming stability is misleading. Hundreds of thousands of new public sector jobs and age-related retirements obscure the collapse of the real economy in official statistics. Merz executed the debt brake with the outgoing Bundestag in April, catapulting Germany into a debt spiral with a €500 billion special fund—a clear indication that policymakers knowingly ran the economy into a wall.
Neither the green “art economy” nor the heavily subsidized military sector will adequately fill freed industrial capacity. Core sectors such as chemicals operate at just 70% capacity, 10% below break-even—a stark signal that the creeping productivity erosion and economic depression since 2018 will worsen, regardless of state credit funneled into centrally planned subsidies.
Welfare State and Refusal to Reform
Berlin has fully submitted to Brussels’ dreadful climate-socialist doctrine and now faces the challenge of hiding its ideological failure. Merz and his team continue the known media-political strategy: as with migration, a continuous camouflage is maintained.
When it comes to deceiving the public, party headquarters show remarkable creativity, leaving no lie too bold. A deportation flight may be staged for optics, while borders remain wide open, family reunification is promoted, and German passports are handed out freely. The aim is to cultivate new voter bases and apply a “divide et impera” strategy to erode cultural and traditional societal cohesion.
Time is bought and the course maintained—just as in climate policy. Pseudo-reforms, such as the ostensible end to the combustion engine phase-out, serve only to give the struggling auto industry an illusion of technological openness while creating a new bureaucratic monster, ultimately fulfilling Brussels’ objective: halting German automotive production.
From the Eurocrats’ perspective, the results are impressive if the goal was deindustrialization. Around 300,000 industrial jobs were cut in the last five years. And when a nation loses its industrial core, much of its value creation disappears with it.
In 2025, German production hovered about 20% below the 2018 peak. An economic and social catastrophe looms, whose consequences seem intellectually incomprehensible to functionaries and eco-centric elites with regard to social cohesion.
Collision with Reality
If 2025 was already catastrophic, the coming year will likely be a collision with reality for many Germans. Social contributions and taxes must rise sharply to sustain social security amid migration and demographic pressures.
Merz’s government continues the legacy of Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz: a Brussels-bound green central planner in the guise of the Ludwig-Erhard party, a political scarecrow devoted solely to consolidating power in Brussels.
The German people, particularly the shrinking class of economic achievers in the middle market, will face an accelerated decline after a dreadful 2025—one the government’s media games can no longer conceal.
Merz’s illustrious “Made for Germany” entrepreneur café was a media fake; “Made in Germany” increasingly belongs to the past. The bitter truth: Germany is done
* * *
About the author: Thomas Kolbe is a German graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/germanys-economic-collapse-2025-review-and-what-lies-ahead
CEO Says "Samsung Is Back" In Rare Remark, Sparks Stock Surge
Samsung shares in South Korea jumped the most in nearly 6 years to a record high after co-CEO Jun Young Hyun quoted customers as saying, “Samsung is back.”
In a New Year's memo to employees, Jun said customers have praised the differentiated competitiveness of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, or HBM4, saying, "It's even earning an assessment from customers that 'Samsung is back'."
Samsung has lost high-bandwidth memory market share to SK Hynix in recent years and hopes its next-generation HBMs will fuel a turnaround this year.
The memo noted that Samsung will also benefit from favorable memory market conditions this year, as demand for artificial intelligence chips has materialized much quicker than initially anticipated.
Memory prices have surged (further insight here).
Samsung shares on the Korea Exchange closed up 7.4%, the largest daily increase since March 2020. The stock surged to record highs, delivering a strong start to the year as AI tailwinds lifted stocks in Asia and Europe, with US futures firmly in the green.
UBS analyst Marisa Vethanayagam commented on the strong start for Asia and European markets, led by technology...
European equities trade off the early highs, with the Euro Stoxx 50 (SX5E) up 35bp as volumes begin to pick up at the start of the new year. Broadly, Cyclicals outperform Defensives by about 50bp, and consensus longs lead shorts similarly by some 50bp. Tech is the market leader on Friday (SX8P up 2%), led by Semis (UBXESEMI up 4%) after a strong Asian handover (positive sentiment from Samsung, Baidu, and IPO Biren). In contrast, UK Real Estate is one of the worst-performing sectors (UBXEUKRL down 1%) following a 0.4% m/m decline in UK house prices versus the expected +0.1%. The desk is much better for sale overall 78/22, mainly driven by long only, while hedge funds are better to buy. The busiest sectors are Financials, Industrials, and Tech, all better for sale.
In a separate note, UBS analyst Nicolas Gaudois said "conventional memory pricing expected to turbo-charge earnings" for Samsung.
"We see the ongoing upside in conventional memory pricing as the main stock driver for Samsung. At 1.43x NTM book, we believe the stock is not yet discounting the strength and length of the upcycle ahead," Gaudois said.
Tim Waterer, chief market analyst, told Bloomberg, "What we are seeing today is a continuation of the run higher in equities, with AI and tech again at the forefront," adding, "Traders are still in a buying mood, with many of the bullish themes from 2025 carrying forward into 2026."
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ceo-says-samsung-back-rare-remark-sparks-stock-surge
"Locked & Loaded": Trump Says US Will Intervene If Iran Kills Protesters
President Trump has just become the first sitting US President to explicitly warn that the United States stands ready to directly intervene in Iran if Tehran authorities begin killing peaceful protesters, as he wrote Friday that Washington "will come to their rescue".
In a brief early morning post on Truth Social, he wrote: "We are locked and loaded and ready to go." He gave no further details what course of action this might take, but it's a pretty clear and provocative message to Iranian leadership - or comes very close to saying something akin to the 'Ayatollah must go'.
Trump's full message is as follows: "If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue."
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did respond in very short fashion, with a senior aide from his office saying Trump should "be careful" if he intervened, warning of unleashing more chaos in the region.
"Trump should know that US interference in this internal matter would mean destabilizing the entire region and destroying America's interests," Khamenei adviser Ali Larijani stated.
The economic protests which have been raging since Sunday, and have spread from the marketplaces to the universities, have turned deadly. International monitors and media have said six have been killed.
However, Iranian officials are saying at least one of these deaths and many among the injured are security forces. The slain officer was said to be a member of the Basij - a paramilitary force linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). In several locales Basij members have been observed supporting local police forces, as is typical whenever major anti-government protests flare up.
🇮🇷| Unprecedented: Iranians from cities where riots took place last night, have come in protest AGAINST the rioters
— Arya - آریا (@AryJeay) January 2, 2026
Iranians from Hamedan, Kavar, and other cities have come en masse to denounce and condemn the behaviour of rioters.
They condemn vandalism, destruction of… pic.twitter.com/AYAAbDhohv
Newsweek reviews of the violence so far in the country of over 90 million people:
- Deaths were reported in Lordegan, Kuhdasht, and Isfahan, though casualty figures vary between state media and rights groups.
- The Revolutionary Guards said one member of its Basij paramilitary unit was killed in Kuhdasht, with 13 others wounded.
- Rights group Hengaw identified the man as a protester, contradicting official claims.
- Demonstrations spread to Marvdasht in Fars province, while arrests were reported in Kermanshah, Khuzestan, and Hamedan.
Most of the protest deaths have come in the West of the country, and mounting casualties from the unrest has been confirmed in Iranian state media - though few details have been given in some instances on whether these are police or protesters.
The initial response from leadership in Tehran:
With the statements by Israeli officials and @realDonaldTrump, what has been going on behind the scenes is now clear. We distinguish between the stance of the protesting shopkeepers and the actions of disruptive actors, and Trump should know that U.S. interference in this… pic.twitter.com/uu9R20KFFv
— Ali Larijani | علی لاریجانی (@alilarijani_ir) January 2, 2026
Trump in openly siding with the protests may have just done one of two things: either he has just supercharged the protests and will given people in the streets motivation to provoke security forces even more - after some government buildings have already been broken into, or else his words serve to quash the protests fairly quickly.
After all, Iranian authorities have already warned against outside interference and meddling, at a moment they are eager to brand rioting youth in the streets as Israeli or American agents. But now they can be branded by officials as doing to bidding of Washington and of President Trump. The people in the streets are unlikely to want to be branded as in America's corner, given it's been the US all along decimating their economy through years of brutal sanctions.
Signs of pro-government and nationalistic 'counter-protests' have emerged:
Huge crowds are marching toward the resting place of General Soleimani in Kerman to mark the sixth anniversary of his martyrdom.
— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) January 2, 2026
Follow: https://t.co/mLGcUTSA3Q pic.twitter.com/Y6hFmpdqZC
It should also been questioned whether the United States actually cares about the 'Iranian people'. Did Washington actually care about Syrians while fueling a decade-long plus proxy war by arming the hardline jihadi anti-Assad insurgency? Definitely not.
Iran's military responds:
Iran’s Defence Minister dismissed Trump’s remarks, saying Tehran would retaliate decisively against any attack and insisting its military strength has grown since the last 12-day conflict.
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 2, 2026
“If any threat targets our country, we will respond with full force. Without hesitation,”… pic.twitter.com/12SeqoWQSe
Trump's new words just added heavy fuel to the fire, and this portends possibly the same Syria playbook applied to Iran.
Thursday, January 1, 2026
Five Biggest Biopharma Takeovers of 2025
Four of this year’s biggest acquisitions topped 11-figure figures. One was 2025’s messiest bidding war.
After a post-pandemic correction—marked by a nosedive in dealmaking activity, a spike in bankruptcies and dried-up financing—M&A activity finally seemed to pick back up for biopharma in 2025.
The year opened with the largest deal that would come: Johnson & Johnson’s $14.6 billion play for Intra-Cellular Therapeutics, putting the pharma in a commanding position in the neuroscience space. This deal also icked off a trend we would see throughout the year. In an industry with an underrepresented by women, many of the big ticket transactions this year invilved companies with a woman CEO.
Besides Intra-Cellular, there was plenty of other exciting activity, especially later in the year, which witnessed two big-ticket bidding wars.
One, between Novo Nordisk and Pfizer over obesity star Metsera, landed itself in this list by driving Pfizer to double its initial offer. The ordeal was also among the most dramatic public spats between two pharma powerhouses. The other bidding war was between Alkermes and Lundbeck over Avadel.
While it got messy and hectic times, the dealmaking activity last year suggests that Big Pharmas have the money to fund hefty purchases—and are willing to spend it. Indeed, as of October 2025, the industry had hit an aggregate takeover value of $70 billion, according to a report from Oppenheimer at the time. This sum already eclipsed the total M&A spend in 2024, 2022 and 2021.
Here, BioSpace looks back at the biggest acquisition deals of 2025.
J&J Strikes Year’s Largest Deal in January
Target: Intra-Cellular Therapies
Acquisition date: January 13
Final bid: $14.6 billion
2025 got off to an explosive start when J&J announced in January the acquisition of neurology specialist Intra-Cellular Therapies for an eye-watering $14.6 billion.
The deal, which formally closed in April, gave the healthcare giant Caplyta, a daily antipsychotic pill approved for the treatment of schizophrenia and depressive episodes in patients with bipolar I or bipolar II disorder. In November, the FDA approved an expansion for Caplyta as an adjunctive therapy with antidepressants for adults with major depressive disorder (MDD).
Aside from Caplyta, J&J also got Intra-Cellular’s clinical pipeline, including the mid-stage ITI-1284, a deuterated form of Caplyta being tested for generalized anxiety disorder, as well as Alzheimer’s disease agitation and psychosis.
These assets will complement J&J’s own neuro portfolio, led by the antidepressant nasal spray Spravato and the antipsychotic franchise Invega. Reacting to J&J’s takeover of Intra-Cellular, Stifel analysts wrote in a Jan. 15 note that the pharma’s $14.6-billion vote of confidence “is a much-needed win for the neuroscience space,” breathing life into a field that has notoriously been difficult to succeed in.
The deal also set the tone for women-led biotechs securing exits in the double-digit billions, with CEO Sharon Mates, who co-founded Intra-Cellular back in 2002 and served as its chair, president and CEO.
Months of Negotiations Land RNA Pipeline for Novartis
Target: Avidity Biosciences
Acquisition date: October 25
Final bid: $12 billion
Joining J&J in giving neuro a nudge is Novartis, which in October put $12 billion on the line to swallow Avidity Biosciences and its portfolio of investigational RNA therapies, landing the second spot on this list.
Novartis’ proposal wasn’t always that hefty, however. Regulatory documents released a month later showed that the pharma’s initial offer was $7.4 billion—way too low for the biotech’s CEO Sarah Boyce. Months of negotiation followed, with Novartis upping its bid to $8.5 billion then $10 billion and, lastly, to the final price of $12 billion.
Avidity’s pipeline is led by three antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates (AOCs), all of which are in registrational development. These include del-zota for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), del-desiran for myotonic dystrophy type 1 and del-brax for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. AOCs consist of a monoclonal antibody to target a specific disease-related protein attached to a short string of nucleotides that produces therapeutic effects.
Leveraging this mechanism, del-zota elicited a 25% increase in dystrophin expression in DMD patients, according to a Phase I/II readout in August last year. A week before being acquired by Novartis, Avidity announced that it expects to submit a biologics license application (BLA) for del-zota in the first quarter of 2026.
Similarly, del-desiran and del-brax are moving steadily toward registration. The former is in Phase III development with first enrollment in July, while the company opened an accelerated pathway for the latter in June.
Aside from del-zota, del-desiran and del-brax, Novartis also picked up other preclinical DMD and rare neuromuscular programs from the acquisition. Avidity also has two early precision cardiology programs that will spin out into a new public company.
Merck Nabs Approved COPD Drug With $5B Potential
Target: Verona Pharma
Acquisition date: July 9
Final bid: $10 billion
Also breaking the 11-figure mark this year is Verona Pharma, which in July commanded a $10 billion buyout offer from Merck.
The centerpiece of the acquisition was Ohtuvayre, which won the FDA’s approval in June 2024 for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), opening up a new mechanism of action for the indication for the first time in more than two decades. In the first quarter of this year, before Merck’s takeover, Verona reported around 25,000 prescriptions for Ohtuvayre, bringing in $71.3 million in sales. Jefferies has previously forecasted peak annual sales for Ohtuvayre between $3 billion and $5 billion.
Regulatory documents released in August 2025 revealed that Merck was the sole bidder for Verona—despite the biotech starting its search for suitors in 2023. Still, during the duration of its courtship with Merck, which began in February, a handful of other unidentified companies approached Verona to explore the possibility of Ohtuvayre-centered agreements, though none of these worked out.
The Merck transaction officially closed in October 2025.
At the time the acquisition was announced, analysts at BMO Capital Markets said that Merck’s $10-billion bet is part of its effort to “to replace commercial revenues now,” before mega-blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda loses patent protections in 2028. Indeed, the pharma in recent years has gone on a shopping spree, buying Prometheus Biosciences for $10.8 billion in April 2023.
Pfizer Battles Novo for the Hottest Obesity Biotech
Target: Metsera
Acquisition date: November 7
Final bid: $10 billion
In November, Pfizer acquired one of the brightest rising stars in the weight-loss game with a $10 billion play for Metsera. The takeover represented Pfizer’s comeback in the obesity arena after scrapping a string of disappointing assets over the years, and the pharma had to work extra hard for its prize.
Pfizer’s first bid for Metsera was a relatively modest $4.9 billion, which the biotech accepted in September. A month later, however, Novo Nordisk filed an unsolicited rival bid of $8.5 billion to snatch Metsera out from under Pfizer. Metsera dubbed the proposal “superior” to Pfizer’s offer and set off a clock for negotiations.
Pfizer bristled at these developments and called Novo’s rival proposal “reckless and unprecedented.” Later, the pharma also claimed that Metsera’s controlling stockholders—including the investors ARCH Venture Fund and Validae Health—“conspired” with Metsera and Novo to promote “anti-competitive activities.”
Pfizer sued both Novo and Metsera to stop what it called the “tortious interference” from Novo “to suppress competition.” At one point, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, joined the fray and wrote to both Novo and Metsera, warning them that the proposed deal structure may be in violation of U.S. merger guidelines.
All the while, Novo stood by its decision to try to steal Metsera away—no matter how unpopular it was—upping the bid to $10 billion. Novo’s new CEO, Maziar Mike Doustdar, even goaded Pfizer from the White House. “Our message to Pfizer is that if they would like to buy the company, then put your hand in the pocket and bid higher,” Doustdar said during an event for a drug pricing deal with the government for its GLP-1 drugs.
Ultimately, that’s what Pfizer did. The pharma eventually matched Novo’s offer, finally convincing its rival to back down and Metsera to accept the proposal.
Target: Blueprint Medicines
Acquisition date: June 2
Final bid: $9.5 billion
Closing out this list is the mid-year merger between Sanofi and rare disease specialist Blueprint Medicines, led by CEO Kate Haviland, the third female leader on this list.
The companies in June agreed to a $9.5 billion acquisition deal, giving Sanofi the FDA-approved systemic mastocytosis drug Ayvakit and a pipeline of investigational immunology and cancer therapies. In 2024, Ayvakit made $479 million. Because of the Sanofi takeover, Blueprint hasn’t reported sales figures for Ayvakit for the latter half of the year, but the pharma in its Q3 business report credited the drug as being partly responsible for a 57.1% increase in sales.
Speaking to analysts in a call after the acquisition, Sanofi’s head of specialty care Brian Foard said that Ayvakit’s launch was “just getting started” and that the pharma sees a lot of long-term potential for the drug. Beyond Ayvakit, Sanofi also got elenestinib, a KIT blocker for systemic mastocytosis.
Blueprint’s pipeline also includes BLU-808, in early-stage development for chronic urticaria, allergic rhinoconjunctivities, allergic asthma and mast cell activation syndrome. Blueprint is also bringing to the Sanofi fold several discovery-phase assets for various cancers, including breast cancer and other solid tumors.
All told, Leerink analysts in a June 2 note estimated that Blueprint’s revenues could hit $2.1 billion by 2030—though to hit this bar, Sanofi “will need to deliver on its plans to find and treat more patients.” And, for the acquisition to pay off, “it is critical, in our view, that BPMC’s pipeline delivers blockbuster revenue over the long term,” Leerink added.
Sanofi closed the Blueprint deal in July, a month after it was announced.
https://www.biospace.com/business/five-biggest-biopharma-takeovers-of-2025