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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Good morning. It’s been a challenging time for workers in the biopharma industry. We’ve seen companies announce layoffs one after another, and people online talk about how it seems increasingly difficult to secure a new job. Read our latest on this subject below, with new numbers on the state of the job market.

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Hello! Hope your weekend was a blissful one. Today, we talk about AbbVie’s outsize marketing spend, see how GLP-1s are impacting cancer rates, and more.

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Vallabh and her husband, Eric Minikel, scientists at the Broad Institute, have been racing to develop a treatment for prion disease, a rare form of neurodegeneration that killed her mother at age 51 and would, if left untreated, likely kill Vallabh as well. It’s an insidious disease. Although it can have several causes, in her case, a single genetic misspelling will lead neurons to produce misfolded versions of otherwise workaday proteins called prions. These mutant prions jump cell to cell, like viruses, misfolding other prions they touch and forming toxic, neuron-killing chains.

So why not use CRISPR to repair or remove the mutant gene?

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Good morning. Read on today for some exclusive hiring news and a retraction of a high-profile paper on cancer detection.

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Good morning. It’s Wednesday, which means it’a also “The Bear” season 3 premiere day. For my Boston readers, know that Ayo Edebiri has been thinking deeply about the tragedy of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919.

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And here is our regular feature in which we highlight a different person each week. This time around, we note that Recludix Pharma hired Ajay Nirula as executive vice president and head of R&D. Previously, he worked at Eli Lilly, where he was senior vice president and the immunology therapeutic area head.

But all work and no play can make for a dull head of R&D.

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