Merriden will buy Halvard Bio for $2.1 billion after its kidney drug clears a key trial
The deal comes eight weeks after Halvard’s lead drug slowed kidney decline in a mid-stage trial. It is the year’s third biotech buyout over $2 billion.
Nadia Okafor
Senior biotech writer in Boston. Writes The Pipeline every Thursday. Trained as a molecular biologist and still reads methods sections first.
A gut microbe may help explain why some patients sail through a common chemo side effect
In a study of 340 patients, those whose guts carried more of one bacterium had far less severe diarrhea during chemotherapy. The authors call it a lead, not a treatment.
The Bedside Ten: rising researchers to watch this year
Our annual list of early-career scientists and clinicians doing work that deserves attention, picked from 600 nominations by our reporters and a panel of senior researchers.
A Cambridge startup wants to make gene therapy in a machine the size of a microwave
Tessellate Bio says its benchtop system could cut the cost of making some gene therapies by 80 percent. It has raised $46 million to prove it.
Inside the cold chain that carries a cell therapy across the country in 48 hours
A personalized cancer therapy starts as a bag of a patient’s own blood cells. Getting it to a factory and back, at minus 150 degrees, is a feat of planning.