Top news
* Germany-based Merck KGaA said its first-quarter earnings fell 18.2% year over year, due in part to negative foreign exchange effects from a weaker dollar.
Eli Lilly and Co. said the phase 3 trial of galcanezumab in episodic cluster headache met its main goal. The study showed that the drug reduced weekly cluster headache attacks better than placebo across weeks 1 to 3 of the two-month study.
On the policy front
* The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to start publicly identifying brand-name drugmakers that have attempted to game the system by using certain tactics to block generic competitors from entering the American market, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told reporters.
* After critics largely panned the administration's plan for lowering drug prices — saying it would have little impact — Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar tweaked his message to try to convince Americans that U.S. President Donald Trump did not break his promise on Medicare negotiations.
M&A and capital markets
* Eli Lilly is acquiring Montreal-based AurKa Pharma Inc., a privately held pharmaceutical company that is studying AK-01 as a treatment for multiple types of solid tumors.
* Polyphor AG, which develops drugs for infections and cancer, priced its IPO at CHF38 per share to list its shares on the SIX Swiss Exchange for an expected total placement volume of CHF165 million.
* Bermuda-based Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. is looking to sell 7 million class A common shares in its IPO, priced at between $17 and $19 per share.
Drug and product pipeline
* Roche Holding AG said the U.S. FDA approved a new way of administering its Actemra medicine to treat children ages 2 and older who have polyarticular juvenile idiopathic arthritis. The disease is characterized by inflammation in five or more joints within the first six months of the disease and most commonly affects the small joints in the body such as the hands and feet.
* The FDA accepted the resubmission of the biologics license application for Redwood City, Calif.-based Coherus Biosciences Inc.'s biosimilar of Amgen Inc.'s Neulasta.
* San Diego-based Pfenex Inc.'s investigational osteoporosis drug PF708 showed an overall profile comparable with Eli Lilly's Forteo in a phase 3 study after 24 weeks of treatment in osteoporosis patients.
* The addition of Roche's Avastin to standard treatment regimens could benefit children whose brain tumors had certain mutations, a study by London's Institute of Cancer Research found.
Operational activity
* Japanese drugmaker Eisai Co. Ltd. said profit for the year ended March 31 rose 31.7% year over year, while revenue grew 11.3%.
* Canada's Zymeworks Inc. agreed to license two antibody platforms to Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. in a deal worth up to US$484.7 million. The agreement involves an $18 million upfront payment plus $466.7 million in milestone payments and royalties on sales.
* The U.S. Department of Justice and five other U.S. states have joined a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that opioid maker INSYS Therapeutics Inc. bribed doctors to prescribe its opioid spray Subsys.
Our features
Ultrasound tech could make scalpel redundant in future brain, cancer surgeries: "Focused ultrasound is the most powerful sound you will never hear, but it's a sound that can save your life," Neal Kassell, founder and chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation, told S&P Global Market Intelligence in an interview.
Other features
* The Swiss Attorney General's office said it has "taken note" of the reports on Novartis AG's $1.2 million payment to President Trump's personal lawyer, Financial Times reported, adding that the company is in contact with prosecutors, who have not opened any criminal proceedings against the Basel-based drugmaker.
* Scientists from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched Beam Therapeutics, a gene-editing company that will be the first to use "base editing," a technique that is more advanced than Crispr, Financial Times wrote. The FT likened it to editing text with a sharp pencil, as opposed to Crispr's cutting and pasting with scissors and glue.
The day ahead
Early morning futures indicators pointed to a lower opening for the U.S. market.
In Asia, the Hang Seng fell 1.23% to 31,152.03, while the Nikkei 225 dropped 0.21% to 22,818.02.
In Europe, around midday, the FTSE 100 climbed 0.28% to 7,732.60, and the Euronext 100 shed 0.04% to 1,070.77.
The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 6:30 a.m. ET. Some external links may require a subscription. Links are current as of publication time, and we are not responsible if those links are unavailable later.
