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When it comes to delivering shareholder value through M&A, Ron Renaud is a biotech investor’s best friend. Over the last 10 years, all three of the companies he has helmed were sold to Big Pharma for a combined $16 billion. 

With that track record — and the financial windfall it brings — no one would have begrudged Renaud, 55, had he desired to spend more time with his Cape Cod fishing buddies. But he can’t quit biotech. Weeks after overseeing the close of Cerevel Therapeutics’s $8.7 billion acquisition by AbbVie, Renaud is back as CEO of Kailera Therapeutics, a newly formed company with a pipeline of weight loss drug candidates.

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Good morning. Today, we look at the biggest biotech events to watch this quarter. And as my editor had to remind me (since I’m still in denial), we are indeed in the fourth quarter now.

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Atlas, Bain, and RTW Investments announced Tuesday that they have co-led a $400 million Series A financing for a new Boston-area startup company called Kailera Therapeutics. The investors have also brought in a familiar face: Ron Renaud, who recently oversaw the $8.7 billion acquisition of Cerevel Therapeutics, a spinout of Pfizer assets that Bain helped finance back in 2018. 

Kailera’s series A round total is one of the largest in the biotech industry this year, and speaks to just how much attention weight loss medications have garnered from investors.

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Good morning. It’s another busy news day, and I’m layering up at home to avoid turning the heater on. Fall is officially here.

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AbbVie reported Thursday that its experimental Parkinson’s drug that it got from Cerevel Therapeutics helped alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life in a late-stage study.

In the Phase 3 trial, early-stage Parkinson’s patients on the highest dose of the drug, called tavapadon, experienced a 10.2-point improvement on tests that measured motor symptoms and quality of life, also known as the MDS-UPDRS parts II and III. Meanwhile, those on placebo saw a 1.8-point worsening.

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Good morning. If you’re following the European Society for Medical Oncology meeting that starts tomorrow, sign up for our ESMO in 30 Seconds newsletter. My colleague Drew Joseph is on the ground in Barcelona (and I’m very jealous of him).

Onto the biotech news of the day.

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On Sunday, a small biotech company called Summit Therapeutics won a remarkable victory, saying its experimental drug outperformed Merck’s Keytruda, the world’s best-selling drug, in non-small cell lung cancer, the disease that represents Keytruda’s biggest market.

By itself, Summit’s victory would be a dramatic story, although not an unheard of one in the unpredictable world of biotechnology. But it’s just the start. Because at the center of it is one of the industry’s most iconoclastic figures: Robert “Bob” Duggan, who became a billionaire after he bought up shares of another biotech company, Pharmacyclics, that was on the brink of failure, developed a breakthrough cancer drug, and sold the company to AbbVie for $21 billion.

Duggan, 80, is a living rebuke to a pharmaceutical industry self-image that is increasingly crafted in Cambridge, Mass. and San Francisco. Before Pharmacyclics, he had no drug industry experience, having worked in cookie stores and then surgical robots. He lacks a college degree, and is a practicing scientologist who told STAT in an interview that he reads the works of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard every day and who has in the past said he’d given the church more than $360 million. He speaks in long, dramatic arcs, often spelling out words, referencing their roots, or giving itemized lists.

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LONDON — Novo Nordisk made worldwide headlines last year when a study demonstrated that Wegovy, its powerful and exceedingly popular weight loss medicine, helped reduce the risk of cardiovascular emergencies like heart attacks. 

Researchers on Friday unveiled results demonstrating another benefit that the drug offered to patients in that study: Compared to placebo, it cut the chances of dying from Covid-19 by roughly a third. 

Given that obesity is a major risk factor for severe Covid outcomes, it perhaps seems obvious that a medicine that helps people lose weight also helps protect them from the worst tolls of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. But researchers say it might not be as straightforward as that. Some studies have indicated that the drug, also known as semaglutide, bolsters the immune system, tamps down inflammation, and strengthens other organs, including the liver and kidneys, in ways that scientists are only beginning to tease out. 

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Good morning and happy Friday. We discuss a new innovative immunotherapy, and we take a look at some of the earnings highlights yesterday.

FDA approves immunotherapy for soft-tissue cancer

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a T cell immunotherapy from Adaptimmune Therapeutics for a rare cancer that arises in the body’s soft tissues, extending the power of immunotherapies to difficult-to-reach sarcomas.

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Good morning! Before we get to biotech, check out STAT’s deep dive into how UnitedHealth mobilizes a massive network of physicians and milked the health care system for profit.

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