Hannah Kuchler

Rasmus Bech Hansen was consulting for life science companies when his mother developed cancer. He wanted to know more about which drugs were available and where the clinical trials were but, despite specialising in the industry, he was surprised at how hard it was to find the data he needed. So, in 2015, he decided to create a service that would break down the silos in the system and give companies and governments the information they needed. “I thought there was a meaningful thing to spend th…

The UK has become the first country to approve a therapy based on Crispr gene editing, with the regulator authorising a treatment for sickle cell disease and beta thalassaemia. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has approved the therapy, called Casgevy, which was developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Crispr Therapeutics. The drug could be used to replace bone marrow transplants. The UK regulator has promised to focus on speeding the most innovative treatments to market a…

AstraZeneca is contesting accusations that its Covid-19 jab was “defective” after the drugmaker was sued for damages by a vaccine recipient who claimed to have suffered from a severe side effect. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker, which developed the vaccine with the University of Oxford, has filed its defence in a case brought by Jamie Scott, who claimed he suffered a rare but severe type of blood clot because he took the vaccine. The lawsuit will be closely watched, in case other vaccine recipient…

Novo Nordisk is in talks with healthcare systems about innovative pricing deals for its Wegovy weight loss drug, as it hopes to expand take-up of the obesity treatment by helping health services spread the cost across many years. Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen, Novo Nordisk’s chief executive, told the Financial Times that to make a “dent” in a condition such as obesity, the company needed to treat many more than just the millions of patients who were taking the drug at the moment. He said the compa…

A competition has been launched to encourage technological breakthroughs that will help people live longer and healthier lives as governments grapple with the increasing burden of ageing societies. X Prize, a US-based non-profit organisation, is offering $101mn — its largest ever prize — for research teams that can show they develop treatments that will restore key muscle, brain and immune functions for 65-to-80-year-olds. The scientists will need to prove that their therapies can lead to an i…

Pfizer is abandoning its plans for a weight loss pill to be taken twice a day after trials showed it caused significant side effects, in a setback to the US drugmaker’s effort to enter the fast-growing market for obesity treatments. Shares in Pfizer fell 5 per cent in in New York on Friday after the group said more than half of the participants in its clinical trial for the new drug had dropped out because of side effects. About 40 per cent of the participants taking a placebo also left the tri…

Obese and overweight patients clamouring for Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss and diabetes drugs have helped the Danish drugmaker grow into Europe’s most valuable company. Now, it wants to go a step further and stop people gaining weight in the first place. Novo Nordisk chief executive Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen has set his eyes on another “gold mine”: trial data that could offer clues on why some people are more likely to gain weight, and perhaps even lead to the first drugs designed to prevent obesi…

AstraZeneca has agreed to buy its first vaccine company in a deal worth up to $1.1bn, as the pharma group expands the infectious disease division it set up during the coronavirus pandemic. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker said on Tuesday that it had struck a deal for Seattle-based Icosavax, which has a potential vaccine for two common respiratory diseases that can cause severe illness in older adults: respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and human metapneumovirus (hMPV). If it succeeds in a phase-3 tr…

GSK is on the hunt for deals in China after the UK drugmaker rebuilt a “very strong” relationship with the government and local companies since a corruption scandal a decade ago. Chief commercial officer Luke Miels told the Financial Times that the company was working on further deals with Chinese companies after it signed a licensing agreement in October worth up to $1.5bn for a cancer drug developed by Hansoh Pharma. The same month, GSK agreed a $3bn distribution deal for its shingles vaccin…

Everything about Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen is understated. The chief executive of Danish drugs group Novo Nordisk grew up on a pig farm in Jutland and from an early age was expected to muck out the animals. While most of his rivals take private jets to their appointments, he waits for commercial connections. Tall, thin and thoughtful, Jørgensen is far from the conventional image of a swashbuckling, dealmaking CEO: he started his career as an economist in the healthcare and planning department.…

A century ago the makers of a revolutionary new drug called insulin promised not to make “nasty profits”. Their commitment created what is now the largest charitable foundation in the world, fuelled by the latest major development in medical science: anti-obesity drugs. The Novo Nordisk Foundation is the controlling shareholder of Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, currently Europe’s most valuable company thanks to soaring sales of weight loss and diabetes drugs Wegovy and Ozempic. The foundation h…

AstraZeneca is set to make one of its first acquisitions in China, announcing plans to acquire Gracell Biotechnologies for up to $1.2bn to increase its investment in cell therapies for treating cancer. The Anglo-Swedish drugmaker has been trying to use its status as one of the largest drugmakers in China by sales to hunt for potential deals. But, like rival large pharmaceutical companies, it has mainly signed licensing agreements for particular drugs, rather than outright acquisitions. Under…

More than a billion dollars worth of Pfizer’s Covid-19 antiviral drugs procured in Europe have been wasted, according to health data, as tight controls over who can receive the medication left millions of doses unused before their expiry date. Paxlovid — designed to be given to patients shortly after they test positive for the virus — has been far easier to obtain in the US than in Europe, where access has often been restricted to the elderly or people at high risk of developing severe Covid.…

Japan’s sovereign development bank is investing in UK life sciences for the first time with funding for 4Bio Capital, a UK venture fund that backs advanced treatments such as cell and gene therapies. The Development Bank of Japan is investing in 4Bio, which funds companies in the UK and Europe, alongside the Japanese pharma group Kyowa Kirin, and US healthcare provider, Children’s Minnesota. 4Bio aims to raise $200mn to $300mn for its third fund — about twice as much as its last one — to inves…

Europe needs to learn from US shareholders willing to make big bets on biotech if it wants to create a thriving homegrown industry, according to the chief executive of Argenx, one of the bloc’s largest biotech companies. Tim Van Hauwermeiren told the Financial Times that Europe has a “chicken and egg” problem: specialist healthcare funds are scarce because not enough biotechs are available to invest in — and biotechs are scarce because domestic investors do not support them. Argenx’s sharehold…

The US Food and Drug Administration will allow Florida to import medicines from Canada, making it the first state to capitalise on rules designed to lower the cost of prescription drugs. Robert Califf, the FDA commissioner, said Florida’s proposals had to demonstrate that such imports would result in “significant cost savings to consumers without adding risk of exposure to unsafe or ineffective drugs”. The US pays the highest prices in the world for drugs and studies have estimated that the co…

UK start-up Genomics has raised £35mn as it seeks to accelerate the adoption of polygenic risk scores to help people predict and prevent diseases through partnerships with healthcare systems and pharma companies. The University of Oxford spinout is pushing genetic testing beyond the search for individual genes, looking at how combinations of genes increase people’s likelihood of developing diseases such as cancer or cardiovascular conditions. Testing healthy people for single genes discovers u…

The head of Google DeepMind believes its drug discovery spinout will halve the time taken to find new medicines, attracting the attention of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies which are looking to artificial intelligence to revolutionise the lengthy process. Speaking to the Financial Times, Demis Hassabis, who co-founded Google’s AI unit and also leads the drugs offshoot Isomorphic Labs, said the goal was to reduce the discovery stage — when potential drugs are identified before clini…

In the spring of 2017, celebrities and scientists gathered at the Los Angeles home of legendary television producer Norman Lear and his wife Lynn. The Hollywood power couple, outspoken supporters of myriad liberal causes, were also interested in the burgeoning field of longevity science. Among the speakers invited to update attendees on the latest advancements was Nicole Shanahan, the CEO of an intellectual property software company in Silicon Valley. Shanahan, a slight woman, with long, highlig…

Abingworth wants to pursue royalty-based partnerships with major pharma groups