If you paid **ANY** U.S. income taxes from 2014 to 2023, then you had a higher tax rate than Pfizer.

The world's former-largest drug developer generated earnings before income taxes (EBIT) of $138 billion in that span. It spent $124 billion on dividends and share buybacks vs. $89.5 billion on R&D.

Today, over 94% of all cotton, soybean, and corn grown in the U.S. harbors GE traits. That's up from 61%, 54%, and 25%, respectively, in 2000.

Rapid adoption was powered by the emergence of stacked traits, which combine weed and insect control into one seed.

Read more: https://buff.ly/4hPrtR3

A supply shortage of Udenyca will impact Coherus BioSciences $CHRS in Q4, but it'll continue benefitting from solid commercial execution in 2025.

Q3 2024 vs. Q3 2023

➡️ Total oncology revenue +118%
➡️ Gross margin 70.7% vs. 56.1%
➡️ Operating loss $6.4m vs. $32.m

Despite the recent stock plunge after Q3 results, Exact Sciences $EXAS has built a record amount of operating leverage.

The business generated $371 million in operating cash flow in the last 24 months.

It ended Sept with >$1 billion in cash for the first time since 2021.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized cancer care, but PD-1 inhibitors generally have low response rates.

What if we could amplify their effects?

CCR8 is an emerging target that could enable valuable immuno-oncology (I-O) combos.

A flood of data is coming in 2025.

Verve Therapeutics $VERV is taking another crack at PCSK9 silencing to reduce LDL-cholesterol.

CRISPR base editor VERVE-102 uses a refined LNP that should reduce side effects from VERVE-101. Base editing payload is the same.

Need LCL-C reductions of 50%-70% to be competitive.

Inaugural @NucleateHQ Pittsburgh BioHack is this weekend!

10/25 ➡️ We're supplying @ZBioticsCompany for team formation & networking!

10/26 ➡️ Fireside chat with our founder @MaxxChatsko on building a biotech

10/27 ➡️ Maxx joins VCs Liam Krut & Zak Slayback as a Biotech Judge

Amgen $AMGN is conducting a 6,000 patient study to evaluate if olpasiran can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Designed by Arrowhead Pharma $ARWR , the RNAi drug candidate reduces apolipoprotein(a) regardless of cholesterol or LDL levels. Results expected late 2026.

7/ Many more insights in the article. This scatter plot near the end is interactive (as are all graphics).

It captures every blockbuster in 2023 ranked by Total Sales, U.S. Sales, and Rest of World Sales.

Blockbusters with >$5B in revenue from:

➡️ U.S. = 15
➡️ Ex-U.S. = 3

6/ We also took a deeper dive into the top 3 blockbusters in 2023: Keytruda from Merck $MRK , Humira from AbbVie $ABBV , and Ozempic from Novo Nordisk $NVO .

Ozempic was used off-label for obesity, but it notched a record for 6th year sales of any drug product in history.

5/ Blockbuster drugs were equally likely to be a biologic or small molecule in 2023.

However, the top 20 (70%), top 50 (56%), and autoimmune therapies (82%) were more likely to be biologics.

Oncology (43%) and cardiometabolic (35%) drugs less likely to be biologics.

4/ Blockbusters treated 15 therapeutic areas in 2023.

Oncology (26%), cardiometabolic (15%), and autoimmune (11%) had the most -- over half of all blockbusters.

There was also one blockbuster drug for dogs. #barkbark

3/ Only 29 drug developers wielded a blockbuster drug in 2023. It's not an easy milestone for smaller or newly commercial companies to achieve.

That count includes Adcetris from SeaGen, which was acquired by Pfizer $PFE later in the year.

2/ Eight (8) blockbusters had sales >$10 billion in 2023.

For perspective, 5 years ago only one crossed this level (Humira) – and only 4 had reached this milestone in history as of 2018 (+Lipitor, Sovaldi, and Harvoni).

This table is searchable and sortable in the article.

1/ The world's blockbuster drugs generated $507 billion in global sales in 2023, including over $296 billion in the U.S. alone.

The top 25 drugs by U.S. revenue (not overall) overwhelmingly benefitted from a lack of drug pricing regulations in the United States.