ASCO preview, rare diseases & Biogen M&A: a BioCentury podcast

Spotlight on cancer. Janet Woodcock on ultrarare diseases. FNIH’s ALS push. Biogen buys HI-Bio

A theme among late-breaker presentations at this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting is the push by companies to move targeted therapies into earlier lines of treatment. On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s editors discuss what they’re watching for in ASCO’s headline presentations and deliver highlights from abstracts released late last week as the oncology meeting readies to kick off on Friday.

The editors also discuss interest by Janet Woodcock, former director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a new approval pathway for ultrarare therapies, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health’s initiative to support development of therapies and diagnostics for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and the billion-dollar acquisition of  Human Immunology Biosciences Inc. (HI-Bio) by  Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ:BIIB) to bolster its immunology pipeline.

This episode of BioCentury This Week was sponsored by Nxera Pharma Co. Ltd. For information on opportunities to sponsor The BioCentury Show and the BioCentury This Week podcast, please email conferences@biocentury.com.