Good morning from the Pharmalittle campus, where I’m filling in for Ed. Normally, I’m the type of person who used to press snooze 10 times in their dorm room before running across campus to arrive for class barely on time. But this week, I’m up early. The scent of strong, dark roast espresso is just beginning to travel up my nasal passages to my brain. Let’s dive into the news, shall we?
The Biotechnology Innovation Organization on Monday announced 30 layoffs that are part of a restructuring of the organization, STAT reporters John Wilkerson and Rachel Cohrs Zhang detailed. Among the senior leaders expected to depart as part of the reorganization are BIO’s science chief, and heads of public affairs, marketing, and policy. The shakeup at the biotech industry’s largest trade organization is yet another example of turnover that has roiled the organization recently. BIO has had four CEOs in the past four years.
AstraZeneca announced plans to almost double revenue to $80 billion by 2030, as chief executive Pascal Soriot presented an investor update on Tuesday viewed internally as the drugmaker’s biggest in a decade, the Financial Times tells us. The Anglo-Swedish group said it would grow its existing portfolio and launch 20 new medicines before the end of the decade, in areas including cancer care and rare diseases, to raise revenue from $45.8 billion in 2023. The update is seen as the most significant since AstraZeneca successfully fended off a takeover attempt from U.S. rival Pfizer in 2014 with an aggressive target of delivering $45 billion in revenue by 2023.
