Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Former Pfizer Staff Accused Of Medicine Trade Secret Theft
Stat: Pfizer Sues Two Former Employees For Stealing Trade Secrets
Pfizer (PFE) has accused two former employees of clandestinely creating a pair of companies that are now using stolen trade secrets to develop obesity and diabetes medicines, which recently prompted Eli Lilly (LLY) to strike a collaboration worth up to $1.5 billion. The saga began about four years ago when two long-standing Pfizer staffers, dissatisfied with career opportunities, decided to create their own venture. They then started accessing numerous internal Pfizer documents and approached a company in Shanghai as an investor, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court in Connecticut. (Silverman, 2/3)
In other pharmaceutical and biotech news —
Stat: Biogen Offers A Disappointing Financial Outlook For 2022
Sales of Aduhelm, Biogen’s treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, continued to underperform expectations in the fourth quarter, Biogen said Thursday, leading the company to issue a disappointing financial forecast for 2022. Aduhelm accounted for $1 million in revenue in the final three months of 2021, depressed by continued doubts about the drug’s benefit for patients and restrictions placed on its use by insurance companies. Analysts who cover Biogen were expecting the company to deliver $2 million in Aduhelm sales during the fourth quarter. (Feuerstein and Garde, 2/3)
Boston Globe: Eleven Years After Buying Genzyme, Sanofi Officially Ditches Subsidiary’s Storied Name
When the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi starts moving 2,500 employees from 10 sites in Massachusetts into a pair of new buildings in East Cambridge next month, visitors may notice something missing at the sprawling complex: any mention of Genzyme. Eleven years after Sanofi bought Genzyme for about $20.1 billion, the parent company said Thursday it will no longer call its specialty care unit Sanofi Genzyme ― just Sanofi, as part of a company-wide rebranding. The move jettisons the name of a storied Massachusetts biotechnology company that helped transform the drug industry in the 1980s and anchored the life sciences cluster that made the region synonymous with innovation. (Jonathan Saltzman, 2/3)
The Baltimore Sun: Baltimore Health Technology Firm Acquired By Canadian Software Developer
Baltimore health information technology company Audacious Inquiry is set to be acquired by PointClickCare Technologies, a Canadian health care software developer. The companies say they both aim to solve gaps in health care and improve care for vulnerable patients. The planned acquisition, announced Thursday, is subject to regulatory approvals. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Audacious Inquiry, which became one of the first recognized B Corporations in Maryland in 2010 to work toward solving social problems, builds networks that transmit data across the U.S. health care system. (Mirabella, 2/3)
Also —
Stat: 'Pretty Appalling': Asian Scientists Rarely Awarded Top Science Prizes
Some see it as a symptom of a discriminatory “bamboo ceiling” in academia: Despite being heavily represented in American biomedical research, Asian scientists are rarely granted the field’s prestigious research prizes. A new analysis, published Thursday in the journal Cell, paints a stark picture. Less than 7% of recipients of some of the country’s most coveted scientific prizes — including the Lasker Award — are Asian, while other prestigious awards in biology have yet to be given to a single Asian recipient. (McFarling, 2/3)
