pharmaphorum Podcast

Chronic liver disease affects around 1.5 billion people globally. As understanding of liver disease improves, outcomes are increasingly determined by how early patients are identified, not just what therapies are available.

In a new pharmaphorum podcast, web editor Nicole Raleigh speaks with Lee Lehman Becker, Roche’s global head of healthcare insights at Roche Information Solutions (RIS), for a discussion of the liver disease epidemic that is being diagnosed too late and driving a growing health system crisis globally.

The conversation also explores scalable diagnostic innovation and the role of this in addressing health system burden – metabolic liver disease projected to affect some 1.8 billion people by 2050, with global costs expected to exceed $2.3 trillion.

You can listen to episode 271 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it – and subscribe to the rest of the series – on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and pretty much wherever else you download your other podcasts from.

The drug price negotiation provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act were designed to continue evolving with each passing year. As CMS prepares for 2028 and 2029, the agency has put out new draft guidance codifying and, in some cases, modifying the fine print of the controversial law. They’ve also recently issued additional draft guidance on how they’ll handle the imminent introduction of Part B drugs into the programme.

Hogan Lovells partner Alice Valder Curran returned to join pharmaphorum editor-in-chief Jonah Comstock to elucidate some of the finer points of this latest communication from CMS – and to urge the industry to take advantage of the public comment periods associated with it.

Curran and Comstock discuss small, but impactful, changes in CMS’s policies around deemed biologics, vaccines, and the special provisions that protect small biotechs. And Curran gives a rundown of what’s in – as well as what’s not in – the new MFP effectuation guidance, laying out how the differences in how Part D and Part B drugs are paid for leave some big question marks hanging over the programme.

Tune in for an easy-to-understand deep dive into some complicated subject matter, and for a more comprehensive rundown don’t forget to check out Hogan Lovells’ policy briefs on the new draft rules and the MFP effectuation guidance.

SYNGAP1-related disorder negatively impacts synaptic signalling during critical periods of brain development, leading to a range of cognitive, epileptic, behavioural, and motor symptoms.

In a new episode of the pharmaphorum podcast, web editor Nicole Raleigh spoke with Kelly Gold, CFO of CAMP4 Therapeutics, about antisense oligonucleotides (or ASOs) - medicines designed to selectively restore natural protein production in diseases caused by gene under expression.

Gold discusses the space and CAMP4’s CMP-002 study, targeting the regRNA associated SYNGAP1 gene. You can listen to episode 269 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it – and subscribe to the rest of the series – on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and pretty much wherever else you download your other podcasts from.

The M&A market has been rebounding in the US, driven by factors like patent cliffs and improved balance sheets – but the question is whether this will play out in Europe and how the wave could differ.

In a new pharmaphorum podcast, web editor Nicole Raleigh speaks with Andrea Carta Mantiglia, partner and lead of the Healthcare & Life Sciences Focus Team at Italian law firm BonelliErede, about whether the current US biotech M&A surge will indeed extend into Europe.

The conversation touches upon the appetite for cross-border dealmaking, the growing role of private equity in European pharma and medtech, generational exits among family-owned pharma groups in Italy, and the role of digitalisation in all this.

You can listen to episode 268 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it – and subscribe to the rest of the series – on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and pretty much wherever else you download your other podcasts from.

Purespring Therapeutics is a precision nephrology company pioneering first-in-class, targeted genetic therapies designed to preserve kidney function.

In a new pharmaphorum podcast, web editor Nicole Raleigh speaks with Haseeb Ahmad, CEO of Purespring, who discusses transforming the treatment of kidney disease, an area of enormous unmet need, with more than 840 million people worldwide living with chronic kidney disease.

Indeed, Purespring’s lead programme is the podocyte-targeted gene therapy PS-002, which is for IgA nephropathy (or IgAN). The conversation also touches upon the evolution of the gene therapy landscape more generally, and where next with this type of innovation in the nephrology space.

You can listen to episode 267 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it – and subscribe to the rest of the series – on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and pretty much wherever else you download your other podcasts from.