Monday, March 30, 2026
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Policy•KFF•Mar 25, 2026
KFF Polling on Health Information and Trust
background ▾
- •Trust in CDC and FDA for health information has fallen to 50% or below, representing a significant decline from pandemic-era bipartisan confidence
- •Partisan divisions have widened substantially since 2020, with Democratic trust in agencies declining post-Trump reelection while Republican trust in Kennedy/Trump remains elevated
- •Healthcare providers remain the only consistently trusted source across all demographic and political groups, suggesting implications for industry engagement strategies
Policy•KFF•Mar 25, 2026
Global COVID-19 Tracker
background ▾
- •KFF's COVID-19 Policy Actions tracker is being discontinued due to cessation of government response data collection
- •The epidemiological tracker (cases/deaths) will continue with weekly updates sourced from WHO through at least March 2024
- •Users are directed to Oxford's tracker and GitHub archives for historical policy data
Market Access
Market Access•Fierce Biotech•Mar 30, 2026
Lilly further embraces Insilico’s AI tech, inking R&D collab worth up to $2.75B
background ▾
- •Lilly is increasingly positioning itself as a major player in AI-enabled drug discovery through successive escalating partnerships, signaling confidence in AI's ability to accelerate R&D and reduce timelines
- •Insilico's post-IPO momentum (raised $293M in Hong Kong IPO, now commanding $2.75B potential deal value) establishes it as a leading AI biotech platform with major pharma validation
- •Watch for: which therapeutic indications Lilly selects under the exclusive license, clinical trial initiation timelines for candidates, and whether AI-discovered molecules advance to late-stage development faster than historical benchmarks
Eli LillyInsilico MedicineNvidia
→ Read original articleMarket Access•Fierce Biotech•Mar 30, 2026
Kailera plots IPO to fund obesity pipeline after one of the biggest raises of 2025
background ▾
- •Kailera plans IPO after securing $900M in funding to advance obesity pipeline, despite $368.7M accumulated deficit and significant cash burn
- •Lead candidate ribupatide (KAI-9531) shows 18% weight loss in phase 3 but lacks head-to-head trial data against approved GLP-1/GIP agonists—a major competitive disadvantage
- •Watch for IPO pricing/timing amid market volatility, phase 3 readout for oral GLP-1 candidate KAI-7535 expected 2025, and clinical feasibility of ribupatide's oral formulation (12.1% weight loss over 26 weeks)
Kailera TherapeuticsJiangsu Hengrui PharmaceuticalsEli LillyribupatideKAI-9531KAI-7535
→ Read original articleMarket Access•Fierce Biotech•Mar 30, 2026
Scaling Radioligand Therapy: Expanding the Impact of Theranostics
background ▾
- •Radioligand therapy currently reaches only ~1 million patients annually but could potentially address 80% of all cancers, representing massive unmet capacity requiring substantial manufacturing and logistics infrastructure investment
- •The limiting factor for radioligand therapy adoption is not clinical efficacy but supply chain execution—Curium is positioning its four manufacturing hubs and 3,400-person workforce as the solution to time-sensitive, quality-critical radiopharmaceutical delivery
- •Watch for announcements of manufacturing capacity expansions, new manufacturing hubs, or M&A activity in the radiopharmaceutical space that would validate whether industry can actually meet the projected 6-fold patient volume increase
Curiumradioligand therapy (class)
→ Read original articleClinical Trials
Clinical Trials•Fierce Biotech•Mar 30, 2026
Biogen’s litifilimab sparkles in midphase lupus trial, raising hopes for pivotal readout
background ▾
- •Litifilimab met primary endpoint in phase 2/3 CLE trial with statistically significant superiority over placebo (14.7% vs <3%) at Week 16
- •Secondary endpoints favor litifilimab on CLASI-50 (19.3% vs 5.5% at Week 4) and CLASI-70 (21.7% vs 5.8% at Week 24), with latter serving as ex-U.S. pivotal primary endpoint
- •Analyst confidence rising for pivotal CLE readout mid-2027, but SLE indication remains uncertain; watch for SLE phase 3 data expected this year and ultimate pivotal outcomes in 2027
BiogenDianthus Therapeuticslitifilimab
→ Read original articleClinical Trials•Fierce Biotech•Mar 30, 2026
Predicting Clinical Seizure Liability Earlier in Drug Development
background ▾
- •CNS-3D brain organoids achieved 83% sensitivity and 89% specificity for predicting clinical seizure liability—13x higher predictive performance than animal models—based on functional neural activity patterns combined with AI modeling
- •The Endurance Study retrospectively validated the approach across 66 diverse small molecules with documented human clinical outcomes, demonstrating the model captures biologically meaningful risk gradients rather than arbitrary thresholds
- •Watch for clinical adoption and validation in prospective drug development programs; key questions remain whether real-time integration into discovery workflows accelerates development timelines and whether regulatory agencies accept organoid-based predictions for safety assessments
28bio
→ Read original articleClinical Trials•Fierce Biotech•Mar 30, 2026
Kardigan hypertension drug tangles biomarker win with blood pressure miss in phase 2 trial
background ▾
- •Tonlamarsen achieved 67% AGT reduction at Week 20 with five doses vs. 23% with single dose, validating mechanism of action but failing to translate to statistically significant blood pressure separation between groups
- •Unexpected prolonged placebo effect in single-dose cohort obscured treatment differentiation, though both groups showed clinically meaningful oSBP reductions (3.5-3.6 mmHg) and five-dose group showed benefits in blood pressure surge reduction
- •Phase 2b redirection toward acute severe hypertension post-hospitalization represents potential rescue strategy leveraging greatest observed benefits in highest-burden patients; watch for phase 2b design, patient selection criteria, and whether biomarker modulation becomes primary endpoint
KardiganIonis PharmaceuticalsBristol Myers Squibbtonlamarsendanicamtivataciguat
→ Read original article