M&A, Deals, Partnerships:
Vertex Pharmaceuticals to Acquire Crinetics Pharmaceuticals (San Diego) for $10 Billion
Vertex agreed to acquire Crinetics for $85.00/share in cash, an equity value of approximately $10.0 billion, picking up Crinetics’ approved acromegaly drug Palsonify along with its endocrine-disorder pipeline. Note: announced Monday, July 6 — one day before this week’s window but not covered in last week’s briefing; flagged here given its size and relevance.
The deal is among the largest biopharma acquisitions of 2026 and expands Vertex’s push beyond its core cystic fibrosis and pain franchises into endocrinology.
GSK Walks Away From Alector (SSF) Pact as Immuno-Neurology Bet Fizzles
GSK issued formal written termination of its 2021 collaboration covering two antibodies, latozinemab and nivisnebart, under which Alector had already received $700 million upfront and stood to earn up to $1.5 billion more; termination takes effect January 2, 2027 after a 180-day notice period.
The move follows latozinemab’s Phase 3 failure in frontotemporal dementia (which prompted Alector to cut nearly half its workforce) and the April 2026 discontinuation of nivisnebart’s Alzheimer’s trial; Alector shares fell 13% in after-hours trading.
FDA Approvals:
Vera Therapeutics’ (SF) Trutakna Wins Accelerated Approval for IgA Nephropathy
The FDA granted accelerated approval to atacicept (brand name Trutakna), a dual APRIL/BAFF-targeting fusion protein, for adult patients with primary IgA nephropathy, a chronic autoimmune kidney-damaging disease.
The approval puts Trutakna in direct competition with Otsuka’s already-approved Voyxact in the same indication
Other Interesting News:
Fate Therapeutics’ (SD) Off-the-Shelf CAR-T Shows Early Promise in Systemic Sclerosis
In an ongoing Phase 1 basket trial (30 patients treated so far), all 4 systemic sclerosis patients dosed with Fate’s anti-CD19 CAR-T cell therapy FT819 showed improvement in modified Rodnan skin score in as little as 3 months, with no cases of cytokine release syndrome, ICANS, or graft-versus-host disease.
FT819 is an off-the-shelf, iPSC-derived CAR-T therapy with a TRAC knockout designed to eliminate GvHD risk; patients received little to no immunodepleting pre-treatment, and 3 of the 4 were dosed as outpatients or discharged within 24 hours. Data were presented July 8 at ISSCR in Montreal.
Ionis Pharmaceuticals (Carlsbad) Doses First Participant in Phase 1-2 Study for Dravet Syndrome
Ionis dosed the first participant in the open-label Phase 1-2 ASCEND study of ION337, an antisense medicine for Dravet syndrome, a rare and severe pediatric seizure disorder; the trial enrolls children aged 2-12.
ION337 is Ionis’ first wholly-owned medicine built on its new NMA chemistry platform, designed to allow less-frequent intrathecal dosing (every 6 months).
FDA Pauses, Then Resumes, Release of Drug Rejection Letters
The FDA confirmed on July 8 that it had quietly paused its policy of publishing Complete Response Letters (CRLs) in real time since April, after a citizen’s petition from an unnamed pharma company (via Covington & Burling) argued the agency wasn’t adequately redacting confidential information before release.
Days later, on July 13, the FDA published 14 new CRLs anyway — spanning an April 23 rejection through Hengrui/Elevar’s July 10 liver-cancer combo denial — while it works to formalize the disclosure policy through a proposed rule.
