Pfizer went to the Oscars on Sunday night as one of three leading (labeled as the “proud”) sponsors — along with Rolex and Verizon — of the annual Hollywood movie awards night.

Along with sponsorship mentions, Pfizer aired a branded commercial during the broadcast for its Covid-19 treatment Paxlovid, a 90-second ad that debuted last month with the tagline, “If it’s Covid, Paxlovid.” It also ran an unbranded 60-second commercial starring celebrities Pink, Michael Phelps, Questlove and Jean Smart, encouraging people with high-risk factors to make a plan in case they get Covid. That ad launched in January.

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Cancer biotech Jounce Therapeutics has gotten a hostile takeover bid from Concentra Biosciences, a San Diego company backed by Tang Capital Partners.

Tang Capital is also a shareholder in Jounce, owning just over 10% of its shares, which according to SEC documents were all purchased in the last two months. But Jounce already has a merger agreement with Redx Pharma that it announced in February and was expected to complete in the second quarter of this year. Through that merger, Redx was planning to jump on the Nasdaq.

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Eli Lilly’s alopecia areata drug is off to a good start with dermatologists. So good, in fact, that the launch of Olumiant in alopecia looks a lot like the initial positive launch of Sanofi and Regeneron’s Dupixent, according to launch tracking data from Spherix Global Insights.

Spherix benchmarked Olumiant against Dupixent’s launch approval in atopic dermatitis in part because there are no other candidates in alopecia, said Gianna Melendez, who heads dermatology at Spherix. Olumiant also compares similarly to Dupixent as a first biologic in the category, along with an accompanying level of excitement and buzz around it.

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Magic Johnson is picking up a familiar position and running point again, this time on GSK’s new respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) awareness campaign. Johnson is leading the team effort to make sure older adults know about the virus, and its risks and symptoms, in the “Sideline RSV” initiative.

The campaign website features a video of Johnson along with a link to learn more at GSK’s “RSV and M” website that explains what RSV is and the risks for older people and those with underlying conditions. The campaign is also running on Instagram and Facebook.

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Bristol Myers Squibb has met some of its big health equity goals early, while missing two internal goals focused on diversifying its workforce. Now, the company says it’s setting the bar a little higher.

Bristol Myers announced on Wednesday that roughly 58% of its clinical trial sites are now located in ethnically diverse areas, surpassing its initial goal of 25%. The news comes as the pandemic casts a harsh spotlight on the lack of diversity in clinical trials. Of the 53 drugs approved in 2020, Black patients represented just about 8% of trial participants that regulators based their decisions on, and Hispanic patients represented just over 12.6%.

The launch of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft from Cape Canaveral last night had more on board than just supplies for the International Space Station. It also contained research materials, including some from Bristol Myers Squibb.

BMS’ project to study the crystallization of biotherapeutic compounds in microgravity is one of about 20 research projects on board, according to a press release from the International Space Station National Laboratory. The BMS research will investigate how the crystallization process could improve biomanufacturing and eventually provide delivery of higher doses of proteins.

Novo Nordisk is cutting the price of its insulin products by up to 75%, the company announced on Tuesday.

Beginning in January 2024, Novo Nordisk will slash the price of brand name NovoLog and NovoLog Mix 70/30 insulin products by 75%, and Novolin and Levemir products by 65%.

A Novo Nordisk spokesperson said the changes have “been in development for many months, but due to increased stakeholder interest, we accelerated to announce now.”

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A well-known celebrity voice is ushering in Incyte’s latest campaign around the skin depigmentation condition vitiligo. Actor Morgan Freeman doesn’t appear in Incyte’s first branded effort for Opzelura for the treatment of vitiligo, but as narrator, his familiar baritone rings throughout the recently launched TV commercial.

Incyte said Freeman’s voice makes the now nationally running TV spot “more compelling, relatable and encouraging for people with vitiligo.” And encouraging is exactly what Incyte is aiming at for the estimated 1.5 to 2 million people in the US who have the autoimmune skin condition. Opzelura, approved in July, is the first pharmacologic treatment for vitiligo to address the repigmentation of skin.

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As the US and Europe continue to consider onshoring pharma manufacturing to shore up the international supply chain, a panel of experts, hosted by the Brookings Institution, addressed how to shore up supplies and resiliency as drug shortages and other supply issues persist after the pandemic’s initial impact.

Speaking on lessons learned from the pandemic, Tom Bollyky, director of the Global Health Program and Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics and Development at the Council on Foreign Relation, said that while there was general success in moving billions of doses of the Covid-19 vaccine once it became more widely available, there were still some difficulties. More than two-thirds of countries had export restrictions on essential medical products during the pandemic, Bollyky said.

Almost a year after Amgen told investors that the IRS wanted billions of dollars in back taxes, a Detroit pension fund is taking on Amgen in federal court — proposing a class action jury trial against the pharma giant.

In the 42-page complaint (case 1:23-cv-02138-ER) filed in federal district court in Manhattan on Monday, Roofers Local No. 149 Pension Fund sued Amgen, CEO Robert Bradway and CFO Peter Griffith, accusing the company of hiding its tax information from investors and delaying reporting of the claimed back taxes — effectively making “false and misleading statements,” according to the filing.

Bioscience & Technology Business Center The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas

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