"The other 3 are more interesting because the drug's company paid on the side. Regeneron made dupilumab and took $5.2bn of Dupixent’s profits, more than 1/3 of its revenue. Genmab made daratumumab, licensed it to J&J in 2012, and collects most of its $3.1bn in royalties from Darzalex. Chugai made Hemlibra and Actemra, sells them to Roche for about $4bn a year, and is about 60% owned by Roche." substack.com/@pharmaceutical…

Two routes to $10 billion "The vertical axis is my best estimate of net revenue per patient-year. The horizontal axis: the patient-years that estimate implies (sales ÷ price). Each point shows one assumption twice. Shaded bars are my price ranges. Each dashed diagonal is one level of annual sales; everything on a line earns the same." positioningpharmaceuticals.s…

Where did 2025’s 30 best-selling medicines actually come from? Industry made more of the molecules than the “pharma just buys innovation” story suggests, but 28 of the 30 rest on biology first found in academic labs. Where a molecule starts tells you surprisingly little. Maybe an interesting set-up for AI and the next 15 years... asymmetriclearning.substack.…

In 1936, John Steinbeck’s setter shredded the only draft of Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck’s note to his agent: the dog may have been “acting critically,” and he wasn’t sure the manuscript was good enough to punish a good dog over. He rewrote it. Most organisations in pharma get the same kind of critic - only it arrives 2 years late, after a Phase II miss or a regulator’s note, and the reaction is to defend the original draft rather than rewrite it. The useful move is to arrange the puppy on purpose, early, while the paper is still cheap... asymmetriclearning.substack.…

🧬 Biopharma 𝕏 Weekly Recap This Week in Biotech: cancer-vaccine expectations ahead of #ESMO, new gene-editing readouts, and competing views on pipeline value. Regulatory questions, drug safety, and patent debates also feature across this week’s selection. Here are 20 posts worth a closer look 👇 @Wilson_WZW $IBRX: Author sees BCG-naive opportunity as Anktiva’s bigger potential differentiator. nitter.siddz.com/Wilson_WZW/status/2110… @maxmarchione Proposed FDA policy could expand access to compounded peptides. nitter.siddz.com/maxmarchione/status/21… @Pharmdca $MRNA: ESMO test ahead: can Phase 3 vaccine benefit match Phase 2 expectations? nitter.siddz.com/Pharmdca/status/211112… @AConfidenceGame $VKTX: Author’s valuation model implies less than 1% obesity-market share. nitter.siddz.com/AConfidenceGame/status… @LifeSciVC Vigil’s oral TREM2 agonist: preclinical and first-in-human Alzheimer’s data published. nitter.siddz.com/LifeSciVC/status/21107… @BreakingBioMatt $IAM: Iambic’s IPO puts AI drug discovery and HER2 candidate IAM1363 in focus. nitter.siddz.com/BreakingBioMatt/status… @adamfeuerstein $NBIX: Vykat safety scrutiny follows reported deaths and hospitalizations; causality unproven. nitter.siddz.com/adamfeuerstein/status/… @bioinvestor24 $JNJ: Author questions long-term valuation and competitive durability in myeloma and IBD. nitter.siddz.com/bioinvestor24/status/2… @RNAiAnalyst $ARWR: ApoE and tau opportunities underpin bullish Alzheimer’s thesis for oligonucleotides. nitter.siddz.com/RNAiAnalyst/status/211… @Andre_AGTC $CMPS $JNJ: Spravato’s $624M quarter supports author’s COMP360 commercial opportunity thesis. nitter.siddz.com/Andre_AGTC/status/2110… @AponiaAnalytics $KRYS: KB113 shows regression in 40/47 uninjected tumors across three patients; durability unknown. nitter.siddz.com/AponiaAnalytics/status… @HOThomasWPhelps Cancer-vaccine watchlist maps platforms, immune enhancers and potential combination partners. nitter.siddz.com/HOThomasWPhelps/status… @seedy19tron $VERA $VRTX: Author sees potential competitive upside if povetacicept manufacturing questions delay approval. nitter.siddz.com/seedy19tron/status/211… @doepke_michel $VSTM: 19.7% rally brings multiyear downtrend resistance into focus. nitter.siddz.com/doepke_michel/status/2… @yaireinhorn Epicrispr: Six-patient EPI-321 update reports muscle gains at six months in FSHD. nitter.siddz.com/yaireinhorn/status/210… @davidrliu $BEAM: GSD1a readout joins a landscape of 32 base- and prime-editing trials. nitter.siddz.com/davidrliu/status/21100… @Franca_ole $SGMOQ: Author flags expected Q4 ST-920 filing as the next Fabry milestone. nitter.siddz.com/Franca_ole/status/2111… @Biotech2k1 $INSM $UTHR: Author argues TPIP’s distinct chemistry differentiates its patent risk. nitter.siddz.com/Biotech2k1/status/2110… @ThenIf_ $LLY: Valuation thesis weighs tirzepatide’s revenue longevity against follow-on cannibalization. nitter.siddz.com/ThenIf_/status/2109947… @GeneInvesting $IONS $NTLA: Cross-trial troponin comparison underpins author’s bullish nex-z thesis in ATTR-CM. nitter.siddz.com/GeneInvesting/status/2…

What Confucius Already Knew About Asymmetric Learning “When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them.” asymmetriclearning.substack.…

The wonders of the Amazon algorithm must be endless, but they also built in optimism… Watching my orders go from ‘arriving between 1 and 3’ to ‘arriving 2-4’ to ‘still arriving today’ (we hope…) suggests they get frustrated with themselves too 😅

Nice piece by @the_sy_guy on @PharmaVoice on R&D bets… (With a few comments from me…) pharmavoice.com/news/pharma-…

"We may be entering an era in which the abundance of intelligence actually tells us less and less about the health of human thinking. And that leaves us with a curious possibility of an intellectual wasteland filled with brilliant answers." The Intellectual Dust Bowl psychologytoday.com/us/blog/…

"If a follow-on pushes tirzepatide from 12 peak-years to Imbruvica’s seven, that is roughly $250 billion of revenue the follow-on has to replace before it adds anything. The market seems to be betting that Lilly gets that trade right. That is a bet, not a measurement. (I’d take the bet…)" asymmetriclearning.substack.…

Today I learned that, aside from COVID-19 medicines, the fastest drug launch is $GILD's Hepatitis C franchise (Harvoni, Sovaldi). Wow! Thanks for educating me @ThenIf_ I wrote about the history of Hepatitis C development, with a big emphasis on Gilead, links below.

My home gym, just tipped over from ‘a bit warm’ to ‘flipping cold’ for a while… Getting the diesel heater ready for ‘oh, it’s freezing in here…’

My defibrillator/ pacemaker ‘went off’ today/ issued an alarm from my chest 😅 Took us a while to realise it was coming from me 😅😬 Turns out, in upgrading the iPhone, apps like my MedTronic one log out and disconnect from the device. So, no problem with my heart, just the app 😂 Wish it had said that, instead of sounding a siren!

I went down a rabbit hole after @ky_lahucik's @endpts piece... Roche did not just do another China deal. It bought a cheap option. Everyone is licensing from China. Not everyone is buying the same thing. "Even the postcodes are blurrier than the headlines suggest. Defand, reported as a Hangzhou company, gives a Boston address on its BIO partnering listing. Earendil, counted among Roche’s China deals, is described elsewhere as Delaware-based. Dualitas, the US shop, raised its Series A with Qiming Venture Partners USA as co-lead. “China deal” is starting to describe where the lab and the cap table sit, not what kind of company it is." asymmetriclearning.substack.…

Adjusting for debt and gross margin, as a reader of yesterday's post suggested. Vertex's premium mostly disappears: $12bn net cash, 86% margin. Regeneron moves further below the line. AbbVie and Amgen move up on debt. Better denominators shrink some stories. One hardens.

I’ve the new iPhone 18 Max Pro - seems fine - not 100% sure the camera is an upgrade yet… But the downside of switching is every single app that matters is now logged out, so I’m back to trying to remember every password I ever created… PITA - would make me reconsider doing this again

Seen a bunch of these - always struggle with my choices, but these made the list this morning... #my9albums

"The interesting part is what growth doesn't explain. @VertexPharma and @EliLillyandCo/@DaveARicks are valued above what their growth implies. Furthest below the line are Sanofi and Regeneron, the two owners of Dupixent. Analysts credit the growth, but the market doesn't seem to pay for it. Equity value in this group mostly tracks the next three years. What it pays beyond that is the part worth arguing about." asymmetriclearning.substack.…