Look back at pharma news to Dec 15

Major news last week included new Teva Pharmaceutical Industries’ chief executive Kåre Schultz bringing out the hatchet with a vengeance, with the market reacting positively to the massive restructuring announcement. Elsewhere, the annual American Society of Hematology (ASH) was still bringing out important results, including on: bluebird bio and Celgene’s myeloma candidate bb2121 and AbbVie’s Venclexta/Rituxan combination. Other clinical trials results of note was the latest on Roche’s Tecentriq in lung cancer and Regeneron and Sanofi’s new checkpoint inhibitor cemiplimab. Also attracting comment was Ionis’ $45 million deal with Roche for its Huntington’s disease candidate IONIS-HTTrx.

Teva investor applaud and staff revolt, as Schultz swings the axe

With unions already threatening to bring Israel to a halt, Israel-based Teva’s new chief executive Kåre Schultz has his work cut out to implement the wide-ranging  cost-cutting program unveiled Friday, says EP Vantage, the editorial arm of the Evaluate group.