Weekly discussion of biotech news w/ @daphnezohar @bradloncar @timopler @LifeSciVC, @cngarabedian, top analysts & other biotech insiders

Joined January 2021
Biotech Hangout retweeted
Novartis remains “very happy” with its $12 billion acquisition of Avidity Biosciences, despite a Phase 3 disappointment for the antibody-oligonucleotide conjugate del-desiran. hubs.li/Q04CsnPL0
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
As someone who has helped companies pioneering the use of AI for drug discovery, this is BS. Sure, AI is a tool that we all should deploy to the best of our abilities, but the idea that AI is going to unveil new medicines at a stunning rate the way it will upend cinema, video games, financial services, advertising, gambling, etc., is a bit absurd. New medicine discovery will be one of the laggards in terms of AI revolution. Healthcare provision, diagnostics, and paperwork streamlining will all move ahead faster. Biology will continue to eat everything, AI included.
Anthropic's S-1 is out Its first highlighted potential use of AI: "profoundly accelerate the rate of progress in biology and medicine, potentially curing diseases that have plagued humanity for millennia ..." sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
A lot of this is just Stanford/ Valley money Like it's a bit inconsequential that these companies are AI x Bio. It's more of the fact that they are valley ppl. AI x Bio outside the valley or without deep Boston ties have no shot at raising this kind of money even if they're doing the same thing verbatim
In case you needed any evidence that there’s a bubble in AI. So the hot thing is starting a drug company with no knowledge data patents or experience. But hey they have a computer.
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
$GILD Entire 75mg arm is questionable but to me most interesting numbers are the huge differences in %response and %remission in 75mg and placebo arm. It is statistically impossible. Such wide gap doesn’t happen even in severe high refractory patients and Emvi trial has mostly naive patients. May be mathematical error? Or some sites didn’t calculate endoscopic subscore accurately and therefore some remission patients were counted as responders?Anyways, I think IL-23 oral acquisition is done to calm investors. I don’t think gilead will do phase 3 with Emvi combo. At some point Emvi will be dropped quietly.
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
To this joy and triumph in October 2026 over retracting the very results you had trumpeted loudly just over a year earlier. Even if the anomolies are real and even if they did not appear until after April 7, how do you go from interpreting the data (however flawed they might be or might have been) as they did with the conclusions they came to in their social media posts, the paper itself, the discussion, the podcasts, the documentary to concluding that the data issues with Cleerly caused everything? Again, in April 2025, they interpreted the data they had and then made the conclusions they did and the integrity of the data had zero impact on it. In fact, if they had been awake and competent, they would have either not published the data or they would have recognized that their initial conclusions were unsupportable. And yet, they did not begin to recognize how idiotic their initial conclusions were until after the deluge of criticism came at them over how they could see what they were seeing and concluding what they were concluding when the data showed nothing of the sort. So the issues of the data and the Cleerly analysis are just a massive distraction from the real issue which is how they could have reached their initial conclusions do confidently and so wrongly. And when faced with how wrong they were, they did not own up to the incompetence and instead blamed the Cleerly data which again has nothing to do with their initial interpretations/conclusions. They just missed it. And they missed it because they are true believers and have no ability to practice science with a shred of skill or competence. They are not scientists. They are propogandists.
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
$GMAB just disclosed phenomenal P3 data for Rina-S, definitely exceeded expectations based on hazard ratios (0.29 for PFS, 0.43 for OS). Median PFS is probably 12 months, OS HR is even better than Enhertu's 2nd line data in breast cancer🤯 This will be the next "standing ovation" data set, let's see where they present it, probably AACR because late breaking deadline for the Triple meeting was Oct 19. ir.genmab.com/news-releases/…
Surprised $GMAB is up only 3% after P2 update on Rina-S which puts it back in the game in the highly competitive ovarian cancer space. Efficacy was strong with a ~47% response rate and PFS of 9.5 months. Safety was better than expected with a low discontinuation rate although >Gr3 hem tox had an incidence of 30% (55% had to use prophylactic GCSF to take of neutropenia) The market is still skeptic because Rina-S is considered a more toxic ADC vs some of the newer topo1-based ADCs from Lilly, AZ, Daiichi and Gilead which also generated slightly higher response rates (50-60%) in P1. While this may still be the case, today's news position Rina-S favorably for its P3 readout (expected in Q4) where it is very likely to beat standard of care chemo (which won't come close to a 47% ORR and PFS of 9.5 months). Approval could come next year and make Rina-S the treatment of choice in 2nd line ovarian cancer. This will block other topo1 ADCs from entering the market via accelerated approval and could make it difficult for them to generate a positive overall survival signal. It could also impact patient recruitment. The best commercial benchmark is Elahere, an ADC approved for a third of ovarian patients selling at a $850M run rate which translates to a $3B sales potential for an ADC approved for the entire population. Safety profile and combinability for earlier stages are the main concerns right now but it is still unclear whether other ADCs are significantly cleaner as their safety package is from smaller P1 data sets.
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Wow incredible news for our patients with ES-SCLC! #ESMO26
#ESMO26 DeLLphi-305: tarlatamab+durva vs durva, 1L maintenance ES-SCLC ➡️ OS 21.1 vs 12.7 mo, HR 0.42 ➡️ PFS 7.4 vs 1.9 mo, HR 0.34 ➡️ CRS 49.6% (G3+ 0.4%) Amazing to be part of this practice-changing study on the global steering committee!! @LungCancerRx @OncoAlert @oncodaily
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
Red and green flag analysis of Tango Therapeutics' PRMT5 inhibitor in combination with $RVMD daraxonrasib in pancreatic cancer at #ESMO26 Elicio's vaccine didn't pan out after encouraging Ph1 data – will this go the same way? tinyurl.com/2hbaj5zy
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
My favorite is the “portfolio manager” who makes almost $3MM per year.
‘Difficult but necessary’: Largest hospital system in Mass. announces more layoffs ebx.sh/YJBznL
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
Lycia Therapeutics is developing novel LYTAC therapeutics to eliminate disease-causing extracellular proteins. Proud to welcome $LYCA to the public markets! #NasdaqListed
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
Great 200th episode! I loved @AAMortazavi's guest appearance for the story of Silence & his comment at the end about what it means to be a biotech in the age of AI; i.e. you can do most things from a laptop in your living room, so ask yourself what is your setup adding.
On today's #BiotechHangout – it’s our 200th episode! @daphnezohar, @EricSchmidt151, @gline aka “woodchipper”, @cngarabedian, @bradloncar, @biotech1 (Josh Schimmer), @SamFazeli8 will kick off with a look back to our 1st episode in December 2021.  $MRNA was influencing industry sentiment & continues today melanoma data w/$MRK & #ESMO data leak & recent impact on market sentiment (degrossing), @endpts Q3 sentiment index, does specialist sentiment lag generalist?, M&A w/  $SLN Merck KGaA deal & special guest @AAMortazavi, China outlook: Roche/Hansoh ($400M upfront) & hawkish treasury proposal, @DaveARicks social media presence, data: $ABVX, $ROIV, #UEGW2026, #ESMO2026 incl. $GSK SCLC, $TNGX pancreatic cancer, @DMSabatini judgment/settlement, & much more: xitter.cf/i/spaces/1qxoNYv…
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Well worth a listen today $XBI
On today's #BiotechHangout – it’s our 200th episode! @daphnezohar, @EricSchmidt151, @gline aka “woodchipper”, @cngarabedian, @bradloncar, @biotech1 (Josh Schimmer), @SamFazeli8 will kick off with a look back to our 1st episode in December 2021.  $MRNA was influencing industry sentiment & continues today melanoma data w/$MRK & #ESMO data leak & recent impact on market sentiment (degrossing), @endpts Q3 sentiment index, does specialist sentiment lag generalist?, M&A w/  $SLN Merck KGaA deal & special guest @AAMortazavi, China outlook: Roche/Hansoh ($400M upfront) & hawkish treasury proposal, @DaveARicks social media presence, data: $ABVX, $ROIV, #UEGW2026, #ESMO2026 incl. $GSK SCLC, $TNGX pancreatic cancer, @DMSabatini judgment/settlement, & much more: xitter.cf/i/spaces/1qxoNYv…
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
I am the unofficial leader of the BioStack community on substack. WE all love your work TY. I have my investors listen every week.
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Oh I remember those Covid discussions - feels like a century ago
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
Regarding China outlook.
Replying to @JMaraganore
Why don't we learn from other industries what it means moving manufacturing to China / letting China take over industries? It is a trojan horse instrument by CCP to wage economic warefare. China uses the state muscle to subsidize local companies' competitive advantge. This destroys affected industries in another countries. Manufacturing, rare earth separation and refining, photovoltaic, robotics, electric cars, you name it. Learn from European naivity, don't fall in the same trap. Biotech is one of the last industries still standing tall. Even though Chinese research students spent decades in European and US univers and research labs (this was stage 1 of the targeted attack). The current "China partnership bonanza" is the stage 2 of their strategy. Stage 3 will be establishing Chinese big pharma industry that will destroy the Western ones and projecting power by providing/withholding the most advanced drugs from smaller countries that "don't behave".
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
$TNGX nice to hear Schmidt call out $TNGX data.
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
Tango reports 82% tumor response rate in trial of combo therapy (Daraxonrasib plus vopimetostat) for advanced #PancreaticCancer at #ESMO26 statnews.com/2026/10/23/esmo… Reduced toxicity data is particularly important as a lower Daraxonrasib dose can be used.
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Biotech Hangout retweeted
Barclays analyst Ellie Merle tells me today that a hazard ratio of 0.6 is the Wall Street target for Merck and Moderna this weekend.
𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐍𝐘𝐒𝐄: @BarclaysCIB Biotech Analyst Ellie Merle previews this weekend's highly anticipated cancer vaccine data from Merck and Moderna at ESMO. She sees scenarios for the stock ranging from $100 to mid $400's. $MRK $MRNA Full video: biotechtv.com/post/ellie-mer…
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#ESMO26 embargo lifted following breach. Detailed data confirm Moderna $MRNA and Merck $MRK cancer vaccine met key endpoints in melanoma trial Personalized mRNA therapy reduced disease recurrence by 42% compared to standard treatment statnews.com/2026/10/22/esmo…
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