Bayer Pays Up To $4B For NC-Based Gene Therapy Firm AskBio

Stat: Bayer To Buy Gene Therapy Company AskBio For As Much As $4 Billion
Bayer, the German drug and agriculture conglomerate, is purchasing an under-the-rader gene therapy firm for as much as $4 billion. The firm, Asklepios Biopharmaceutical, is widely known as AskBio and has existed for 20 years as the vehicle for commercializing the work of its chief scientific officer, Richard Jude Samulski, one of gene therapy’s pioneers. AskBio, based in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, was founded in 2001 based on technology Samulski started working on as a graduate student. (Herper, 10/26)

In other biotech developments —

Boston Globe: Foghorn Therapeutics Raises $120 Million In IPO
Stock in Foghorn Therapeutics Inc. was up about 14 percent Friday morning in its first day of trading on the Nasdaq exchange, after the Cambridge biotech startup raised $120 million in its initial public offering. The biotech on Thursday said it would offer 7.5 million shares at $16 apiece, the midpoint of its expected range of $15 to $17. The stock is trading under the ticker FHTX. (Gardizy, 10/23)

Stat: Why Biotech Is Betting Big On SPACs This Year
If you thumb through the financial press or flipped on CNBC over the past nine months or so, you probably noticed that the world is suddenly overrun with SPACs. A SPAC, or a special purpose acquisition company, is an old financial tool used by private companies to go public without retaining all the lawyers and bankers one needs to execute a traditional IPO. (Garde and Feuerstein, 10/23)

Stat: Digital Health Leaders Weigh In On The Biggest Barriers Facing The Industry
Spurred on by a global pandemic, the digital health industry is facing a crucial test: Can its trendy tools become a new health care norm? STAT sat down for a virtual conversation with eight of the biggest names in digital health — including leaders at Lyft, Virta Health, and One Medical — to talk about the obstacles standing in the way of the shift and what can be done to address them. (Brodwin, 10/26)

Stat: What Patients Want The FDA To Consider About The Role Of AI In Medicine
Federal regulators have cleared dozens of AI products used in health care, which might give the impression that the Food and Drug Administration has a firm handle on a technology that is already changing how patients are treated. But a meeting on AI regulation last week told a different story. The agency is still grappling with fundamental questions about algorithmic bias, data transparency, and how to ensure that patients benefit equally from AI’s rapid progress in medicine. (Ross, 10/26)

KHN: Verily’s COVID Testing Program Halted In San Francisco And Oakland 
Amid fanfare in March, California officials celebrated the launch of a multimillion-dollar contract with Verily — Google’s health-focused sister company — that they said would vastly expand COVID testing among the state’s impoverished and underserved communities. But seven months later, San Francisco and Alameda counties — two of the state’s most populous — have severed ties with the company’s testing sites amid concerns about patients’ data privacy and complaints that funding intended to boost testing in low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods instead was benefiting higher-income residents in other communities. (Gold and Pradhan, 10/26)

In pharmaceutical news —

Stat: Mirati Results Set New Response Bar For KRAS-Blocking Lung Cancer Drugs
A pill from Mirati Therapeutics designed to block the cancer protein called KRAS shrank tumors in 45% of patients with advanced lung cancer, according to pooled results from two clinical trials presented Sunday. The tumor response to the Mirati drug, called adagrasib, is still preliminary, yet it’s also the best and most encouraging data reported so far for an emerging class of treatments that block a cancer target once thought to be “undruggable.” (Feuerstein, 10/25)

Stat: ‘Where Is Rudy?’: Giuliani’s Checkered Track Record As A Pharma Consultant
Where is Rudy? That’s what a top executive at Ranbaxy Laboratories wanted to know in September 2008, one month after the former New York City mayor — and now President Trump’s personal lawyer — had been paid a $1 million fee (see this, too) to help the wayward drug maker escape a huge jam. (Silverman, 10/26)