Setbacks in Biotech: Vertex and Estella's

On this week’s Biotech Hangout, hosts Daphne Zohar, Josh Schimmer, Brad Loncar, Dawn Bell and Sam Fazeli discuss the latest in biotech news, including their takeaways from last week’s JPM 2024 conference and Brad’s BiotechTV interviews with several attendees. The hosts also discuss the many deals from the week including Merck’s acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics ($680M), Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of Ambrx ($2B), GSK acquires Aiolos Bio ($1.4B), Boston Scientific acquires Axonics ($3.7B) and several Novartis deals including their dropped pursuit of Cytokinetics, acquisition of Calypso ($250M), their licensed drugs from a China biotech ($185M) and their deal with Eli Lilly and Isomorphic Labs ($3B). Other topics include two preclinical companies, Metagenomi and ArriVent file for IPO, Vertex pauses its diabetes cell therapy trial and Astellas gets a CRL. *This episode aired on January 12, 2024