Login
Pfizer Announces Layoffs as COVID Vaccine Revenue Slumps
Pfizer is slashing its headcount after announcing it was going to cut its full-year revenue forecast by 13% earlier this week amid slumping sales of its COVID-19 vaccine.
On October 13, the American pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation said it expected its revenue for 2023 to be between $58 billion and $61 billion, down from an initial forecast of between $67 billion and $70 billion.
The company earned record revenue topping $100 billion last year. Revenues from the COVID-19 vaccine developed with BioNTech and antiviral treatment Paxlovid alone made Pfizer more than $56 billion in revenues.
To make up for the lower-than-expected sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and treatment this year, Pfizer announced it will cut $3.5 billion worth of jobs and expenses to gain savings through 2024, though it did not provide details on exactly how many people it will let go.
Ozempic for Kids? Drugmakers Test Weight-Loss Shots for 6-Year-Olds
Pharmaceutical companies are looking to get buzzy weight-loss shots approved for younger and younger patients. Eli Lilly & Co. is planning to test its diabetes drug Mounjaro for patients six and up with obesity, according to a person familiar with the trial who didn’t want to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Novo Nordisk A/S is also testing Saxenda — an older and less powerful version of its blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy — in kids as young as six.
“We are certainly committed to innovation in this space that’s going to address all segments of the population that’s affected,” said Nadia Ahmad, Eli Lilly’s associate vice president of medical development for obesity. The drug company started recruiting for a trial in kids 12 and up this week.
If either of these drugs is approved, they would be the first weight-loss medicines known as GLP-1 receptor agonists available to patients that young anywhere in the world. So far, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have only greenlit the use of such treatments in adolescents 12 and older. The U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in July quietly terminated its review of Wegovy for teens.
For drugmakers, adding younger patients also has a huge financial upside. A projection released by Goldman Sachs this week that estimates GLP-1s will bring in $100 billion by 2030 doesn’t factor in sales to kids, who would take the drugs for even longer than adults. Studies have found the treatments only work as long as people stay on them, meaning that in many cases people will take them for their entire lives if they want to keep the weight off.
CVS Health Pulls Some Cough-and-Cold Treatments With Ingredient Deemed Ineffective by Doctors
CVS Health is pulling from its shelves some cough-and-cold treatments that contain an ingredient that has been deemed ineffective by doctors and researchers.
The drug store chain said it will remove a small number of products that contain phenylephrine as the only active ingredient. CVS also said it will still sell “many other oral cough and cold products to meet consumer needs.”
U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisers voted unanimously last month against the effectiveness of phenylephrine, which is found in popular versions of Sudafed, Dayquil and other medications stocked on store shelves.
The FDA had asked its outside advisers to examine the long-questioned drug ingredient.
Eli Lilly Goes After 11 Online Pharmacies for Allegedly Selling Unauthorized Versions of Mounjaro
In September, Eli Lilly filed lawsuits against eight companies in the U.S. that it claims are producing or selling compounded versions of its blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro.
Now, a month later, Lilly is going after 11 online pharmacies — including several overseas — that the company believes are importing, selling or distributing unauthorized versions of the treatment.
In a complaint filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission, Lilly has named three companies in China, three in Europe and five in the U.S. that claim their products contain tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro. The companies are actually selling “low-grade” versions of the drug, Lilly said (PDF) in the filing.
New Prostate Cancer Treatment Could Be on the Horizon, Say U.K. Researchers: ‘Tremendously Exciting’
A new study published in the journal Nature has found that for some patients with treatment-resistant prostate cancer, a new process can “block” the messages that cancer uses to “hijack” white blood cells.
In early clinical trials, researchers from The Institute of Cancer Research in the U.K. found that this process made advanced prostate cancers more treatable, “shrinking tumors or halting their growth,” according to a press release from the university.
The researchers targeted “feeder” myeloid white blood cells, which are typically pulled into cancer tumors to advance the disease. This was the first human trial to show that this approach can slow the growth of cancer tumors and make them more responsive to treatment.
In the study, patients with advanced disease received two medications: AZD5069, an experimental drug that blocks cancer cells from “hijacking” myeloid cells to feed tumors, and enzalutamide, a hormone therapy commonly used to treat prostate cancer.
Highly Potent Statin Stands Out for Diabetes, Cataract Risks — Head-to-Head Comparison of Rosuvastatin vs Atorvastatin in LODESTAR Trial
Two high-intensity statin regimens showed similar clinical efficacy when directly compared in secondary prevention, but one was associated with a greater risk of diabetes and cataracts in results from the LODESTAR trial.
As for safety, the rosuvastatin group had a higher incidence of new-onset diabetes requiring initiation of diabetes medication (7.2% vs 5.3%; HR 1.39, 95% CI 1.03-1.87) and cataract surgery (2.5% vs 1.5%; HR 1.66, 95% CI 1.07-2.58), Myeong-Ki Hong, MD, Ph.D., of Severance Hospital and Yonsei University College of Medicine in Seoul, Korea, and colleagues reported in The BMJ.
The investigators noted that it is unclear how a particular statin could be tied to new-onset diabetes, whereas excess cataracts may be related to rosuvastatin’s more potent LDL cholesterol lowering — namely the prevention of epithelial cell development within the crystalline lens.
First Pill for Dengue Shows Promise in Human Challenge Trial
A pill for dengue fever developed by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) appeared to protect against a form of the virus in a handful of patients in a small human challenge trial in the United States, according to data presented by the company on Friday.
There are currently no specific treatments for dengue, a growing disease threat, the company said ahead of the presentation of the data at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Annual Meeting in Chicago.
“It is the first ever to show antiviral activity against dengue,” Marnix Van Loock, who oversees emerging pathogens research for J&J’s Janssen division, said of the drug. In human challenge trials, researchers intentionally expose healthy volunteers to a pathogen to test a vaccine or treatment, or better understand the disease they cause.
Dengue fever, while often asymptomatic, is also known as “break-bone fever” for the severity of the joint pain and spasms that some patients experience.
