Friday, March 27, 2026
Iterum Therapeutics Announces Filing of Winding Up Petition
Iterum Therapeutics (Nasdaq: ITRM) filed a petition in the High Court in Ireland to wind up the company and was placed in provisional liquidation on March 27, 2026.
A court hearing is set for April 13, 2026; Joint Provisional Liquidators from Teneo were appointed to oversee winding down and potential dissolution.
Iran's response to U.S. proposal expected imminently
Iran's response to a United States peace proposal aimed at ending the war in the Middle East is expected later on Friday, according to a source briefed on the matter.
US President Donald Trump and top White House officials have been told via interlocutors that Iran's counter-proposal would likely arrive on Friday, the source said.
The war, which began when the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, has spread across the Middle East.
Where others missed, AZ's IL-33 drug hits the mark in COPD
AstraZeneca's IL-33-targeting antibody tozorakimab has made the grade in two phase 3 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) trials, raising the prospects of a class that has recorded some notable failures in the past.
Top-line results from the OBERON and TITANIA trials showed that tozorakimab reduced the annualised rate of moderate-to-severe COPD exacerbations, debilitating attacks that signal progression of the disease, compared with placebo, when added to standard inhaled therapies.
The two studies spanned a broad range of COPD patients, including former and current smokers and people with a broad range of lung functions and levels of inflammatory eosinophil cells, and tozorakimab was "generally well tolerated," according to AZ.
The pharma groups also said that the antibody is the first in the class to show "statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful reductions in COPD exacerbations in two" phase 3 trials.
Even when on inhaled standard of care, more than 50% of patients experience exacerbations, putting them at an increased risk of serious complications that can be fatal.
The pharma industry has been looking at the potential of anti-IL-33 drugs for asthma and COPD for many years, but candidates from Sanofi/Regeneron (itepekimab) and Roche (astegolimab) have generated mixed results in clinical trials, raising questions about the role of the class in inflammatory respiratory diseases.
The landscape for COPD treatment has also started to expand beyond inhaled beta agonists, muscarinic antagonists, and corticosteroids – the mainstay of treatment for decades – after the approvals of two biologic therapies, namely Sanofi/Regeneron's IL-4 and IL-13 inhibitor Dupixent (dupilumab) and GSK's anti-IL-5 antibody Nucala (mepolizumab).
Both those drugs are approved for COPD associated so-called type 2 inflammation, generally with high eosinophil counts, so AZ's trials point potentially to a broader utility for tozorakimab if it reaches the market.
That view underpins AZ's lofty $3-$5 billion peak sales prediction for the drug, and the new data goes a long way to assuage the company's recent disappointing phase 3 results with IL-5 inhibitor Fasenra (benralizumab).
Nearly 400 million people are diagnosed with COPD worldwide, and it is the fourth-leading cause of death. By 2050, the prevalence is expected to increase to about 600 million people and become the number one cause of hospital admissions, costing global healthcare systems approximately $4 trillion.
AZ is also running two other phase 3 trials of tozorakimab in COPD, PROSPERO and MIRANDA, with readouts from both due in the first half of the year, which could set up regulatory filings in a matter of months.
Meanwhile, the drugmaker is also being tested in phase 3 for severe viral lower respiratory tract disease and in a phase 2 asthma study.
https://pharmaphorum.com/news/where-others-missed-azs-il-33-drug-hits-mark-copd
Recordati gets €10.9bn takeover bid from private equity firm
Recordati has received an unsolicited takeover offer from private equity group CVC Capital Partners that, if completed, would delist the pharma group from the Italian stock exchange.
The €52-per-share offer values Recordati at around €10.9 billion (around $12.5 billion). In a statement, the company said the "non-binding indication of interest" from CVC is subject to various conditions, including "due diligence, the securing of financial resources needed to fund the transaction, and the identification of partners with whom to pursue the initiative."
The private equity firm already owns 46.8% of Milan-headquartered Recordati, according to Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, which first reported the offer was coming. Jersey, UK-domiciled CVC acquired its stake in Recordati in 2018 – then giving it a majority 51.8% position – for around €3 billion.
CVC has not yet commented on its offer to take control of Recordati, which has emerged after the investment group was reported by Bloomberg to be thinking of divesting its stake in the group just a couple of years ago.
Last month, Recordati's 2025 financial results revealed a healthy 8.3% increase in annual revenues to €2.62 billion, driven by Cushing's syndrome therapy Isturisa (osilodrostat), and net profit up 14.5% to €651 million. It is forecasting 2026 revenues of €2.73 to €2.8 billion.
The company has been growing its revenues at an impressive pace in recent years, fuelled by a push into the rare diseases category to complement its longstanding position in specialty/primary care therapies.
It says it is committed to further expansion through bolt-on licensing and/or M&A deals – something that could be easier as a privately-held group due to greater confidentiality, faster decision-making, and less public shareholder pressure.
In the last couple of years alone, Recordati bought cold agglutinin disease (CAD) therapy Enjaymo (sutimlimab) from Sanofi for more than $1 billion, licensed European rights to Amarin's heart therapy Vazkepa (icosapent ethyl), and formed an alliance with Moderna to develop mRNA-3927, a treatment for propionic acidaemia.
CVC's interest in taking control follows a move by Recordati to double its peak sales forecast for Isturisa from around €600 million to €1.2 billion. Sales grew 22.5% to €394 million last year.
The cortisol synthesis inhibitor was first launched in 2020 for Cushing's disease, a subtype of Cushing's syndrome, but has seen its growth accelerate since its label was expanded last year to include all forms of endogenous Cushing's syndrome in patients for whom surgery is not an option or has not been curative.
https://pharmaphorum.com/news/recordati-gets-eu109bn-takeover-bid-private-equity-firm
Iran targets US, Israeli forces in Kuwait's Bubiyan Island
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Friday that its Navy targeted sites of the United States and Israeli forces in Kuwait's Bubiyan Island in a surprise drone and missile attack.
The IRGC claimed that "a large number" of American soldiers were killed and wounded in this strike, adding that the injured were transferred to Kuwaiti hospitals, which were immediately quarantined.
The organization stressed that it will continue attacking American servicemen across the region "until they are completely eliminated from the Muslim lands."
Israel confirms strikes on Iran nuclear facility
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed on Friday that it carried out strikes on a nuclear complex in Iran's Arak.
The two separate strikes previously reported by Tehran targeted a heavy water facility used in hydrogen solutions.
In a post shared on X, the IDF called the Iranian nuclear "weapons" program an "existential threat to Israel and the entire world," vowing to stop its advancement.
Google may back data center leased to Anthropic
Alphabet Inc.'s Google LLC supposedly intends to financially support a multibillion-dollar data center project in Texas, leased to Anthropic, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
According to the news outlet, which cited people with knowledge of the matter, Google will provide construction loans to Nexus Data Centers, the site's operator, as part of its support, which is expected to be finalized in the upcoming weeks. The 2,800-acre data center site was a part of Google's collaboration with Anthropic, which earlier this month inked a lease with Nexus.
The sources also said that a consortium of banks was competing for funding by the middle of the year for the project's first phase, which could cost more than $5 billion. However, with support from Google-owner Alphabet, the project should be able to raise the funding at a lower cost.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Google-may-back-data-center-leased-to-Anthropic/65970246
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