An update on the pharma industry’s reshoring effort

After a wave of high-profile pledges to bring pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the United States, a clearer picture of what reshoring actually looks like is starting to emerge. Tens of billions of dollars have been committed to new U.S. plants, but those investments are unlikely to translate in…

Pulse check on Lilly's GLP-1 fortunes

While Lilly’s position in the obesity market and wider GLP-1 space has remained largely unshakeable in recent months, a crack in the company’s armor may be forming, according to at least one analyst. As that assessment dealt a blow to the company’s stock price in recent weeks, Lilly is plowing forw…

Avoiding 11th hour surprises in clinical trials (Sponsored)

In this episode of The Top Line, host Chris Hayden speaks with Olive McCormick, Head of Quality and Qualified Person at Almac Clinical Services about why late‑breaking issues in clinical trials pose such significant risk — and what teams can do to prevent them. McCormick explains that operational m…

What Xaira is building after its $1B fundraise

Since Xaira’s eye-popping $1 billion fundraise in 2024, the company has said relatively little in public. That’s made it one of biotech’s more closely watched black boxes: a company with enormous backing, enormous ambition and, until recently, few clues about what it has actually been building. In…

Patent expirations push biopharma industry toward a tougher 2026

In this week’s episode of “The Top Line,” we take a deep dive into the fourth-quarter performance of the biopharma industry and how the sector fared in 2025 overall. As the world’s 25 largest biopharma companies reported earnings, attention quickly shifted to their outlook for 2026. Only five drug…

As AI evolves, the modern R&D lab is changing

The design of the modern R&D lab may be due for a rethink. Artificial intelligence and automation are reshaping how science gets done, yet many of the physical spaces where research happens were built around assumptions that date back decades. In this episode of “The Top Line,” Fierce Life Scienc…

How physiology powers biotech innovation (Sponsored)

Physiology connects genes and molecules to whole-body function, shaping every stage of drug discovery and development. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, Sue Bodine, president-elect of the American Physiological Society and a professor at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, explains w…

Autoimmune CAR-T: Navigating the FDA’s new regulatory playbook

For more than a decade, CAR-T therapy has been the miracle of oncology, turning end-stage blood cancers into curable diseases. But the application of these engineered cell therapies is expanding to reset the immune system for patients living with lupus, stiff person syndrome and other autoimmune co…

Inside the sterile fill capacity crunch (Sponsored)

What does the future hold for sterile fill-finish CDMOs in a rapidly evolving market? In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, Denis Johnson, CEO of Grand River Aseptic Manufacturing, discusses the capacity crunch facing U.S. sterile manufacturing and what it means for healthcare stakeholders. A…

Trump's tariff threats, measured by manufacturing

Though uncertainty still surrounds the Trump administration’s pharmaceutical import tariffs, the trade rhetoric set off a clear response across the industry in 2025. Drugmakers accelerated U.S. manufacturing plans, pushing production higher as companies looked to insulate their supply chains. Now, …