The Top Line

Biomanufacturing supply networks must deliver consistency while remaining flexible enough to respond to changing demand, material availability and regional requirements. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, Irena Luo speaks with Brandon Pence, president and chief operating officer at FUJIFILM Biosciences, about building a more reliable and adaptable global supply network.  Pence explain...

Patient experience is shaped by more than clinical care. It begins with transportation, parking and wayfinding, and continues through check-in, the patient room, diagnostics and follow-up. In this sponsored episode of Podnosis, host Irena Luo speaks with Candace LeVaughn, industry principal of healthcare at Schneider Electric, and Debbie Gregory, principal healthcare innovation consulting at SSR,...

China can play several roles in a global clinical development program, from supporting a capital-efficient proof-of-concept study to contributing evidence within a multiregional clinical trial. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, Caidya Chief Operating Officer Mike Clay and Vice President of Business Development Jinye Shen join Fierce Life Sciences’ Will Herth to discuss how sponsors...

As biotech companies continue to navigate a challenging funding environment, Axiom Biosciences is taking an unconventional approach to raising capital and developing new therapies. The company is pursuing a public listing in Hong Kong, with ambitions to eventually list on the Nasdaq. Meanwhile, it's developing several drug delivery platforms, including a stem cell therapy approach that doesn't rel...

For nearly three decades, Jigar Raythatha has helped build biotech companies and bring new medicines to patients. But in 2023, the Third Rock Ventures partner found himself on the other side of drug development when he was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. In a remarkable coincidence, the same day Raythatha underwent the MRI that would lead to his diagnosis, Servier announced positive ph...

Life science field teams are a major source of customer insight, but growing complexity, limited HCP access and expanding omnichannel demands can make it difficult to turn every interaction into action. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, host Kelly Hogan speaks with Nick Syndercombe, STEM AI lead program director at Inizio Ignite, about how AI can help connect real-world field conversation...

Broad chronic kidney disease labels can obscure distinct biology, complicating patient selection, progression assumptions and treatment-signal interpretation. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, Will Hurth speaks with Dr. Ronen Schneider, medical director of renal genetics at Natera, about the business and development implications of moving toward genotype-defined kidney disease.  Schn...

In this week's episode of "The Top Line," we're covering a pair of FDA approvals for GSK, an antibody-drug conjugate pact worth up to $15 billion and the growing role of point-of-care advertising in pharmaceutical marketing. First, we look at GSK's big week, which included FDA approval for Jemperli in certain patients with rectal cancer, offering the possibility of avoiding chemotherapy, radiation...

In this week's episode of "The Top Line," we're looking at two companies building on recent successes and pursuing new opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry. From Teva's growing portfolio of innovative medicines to Novo's expanding reach in the GLP-1 market, both companies are looking to build on their momentum as they prepare for the next phase of growth. First, Fierce Pharma's Fraiser Kan...

Clinical AI is moving from systems that predict and summarize toward agents that can help execute parts of a workflow. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, Will Hurth speaks with Saama’s Ari Srinivasan, chief customer success and growth officer, and Yatesh Midha, associate vice president of product management, about what that evolution could mean for clinical development.   The co...

What if clinical development teams could evaluate potential trial outcomes before a study reaches patients? In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, host Irena Luo speaks with Raja Shankar, vice president for machine learning within AI and technology solutions at IQVIA, about a foundation model designed specifically for life sciences. Shankar explains why general-purpose models may overlook impo...

What does it mean to be a Fierce 15 biotech in 2026? With this year’s list unveiled, the Fierce Biotech team gets together to discuss what the winners tell us about the state of the sector. In this week’s episode of "The Top Line," the Fierce Biotech editorial team reflects on the process of distilling more than 150 high-quality entries into the final Fierce 15 list. The team discusses...

With GLP-1s paving the way, a consumer shift is happening across markets for certain branded pharmaceuticals. Now, the CEO of a buzzy pattern-hair-loss biotech is eyeing opportunities in an evolving market that could expand well beyond his own company. In this week’s episode of "The Top Line," Fierce’s Fraiser Kansteiner chats with Reid Waldman, co-founder and CEO of hair loss-focused...

Fierce Pharma Week brought thousands of people to Philadelphia for four days of conversations about pharma marketing, commercialization, medical affairs and communications. In this episode of "The Top Line," Fierce editors share the conversations, trends and moments that stood out from the event. Topics include Genentech’s use of humor and celebrity storytelling to raise awareness of diabeti...

Prediction markets are opening up new ways to bet on biopharma events, from clinical trial readouts to FDA approvals. But they also create a new set of risks for an industry where employees, researchers, contractors and others may have access to confidential information that could give them an edge. In this episode of “The Top Line,” Fierce Biotech’s Will Maddox talks with David...

Clinical development organizations are facing mounting pressure to do more with increasingly complex protocols, larger data sets and tighter timelines. While automation has improved individual processes, many of the industry's most persistent delays continue to occur between tasks, systems and teams. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line , host Lauren Ledger sits down with Greg Lever, director...

Revolution Medicines recently made history with the approval of its RAS inhibitor Rasonque for advanced pancreatic cancer. But behind RevMed is an entire field of biotechs working to broaden the reach of RAS-targeting drugs. In this week’s episode of “The Top Line,” Fierce Biotech’s Darren Incorvaia sits down with Verastem Oncology CEO Dan Paterson and Chief Scientific Offi...

The 2026 Fierce 50 includes people and organizations working on very different problems across biopharma and healthcare, from designing new proteins and developing cancer medicines to protecting vaccine science, improving health literacy and expanding representation in medicine. In this episode of “The Top Line,” Fierce Editor-in-Chief Ayla Ellison looks at the stories behind several o...

The promise of precision medicine depends on more than scientific innovation. It also depends on whether eligible patients can be identified, tested and connected to the most appropriate treatment. In this episode of The Top Line , host Kelly Hogan is joined by Susanne Munksted, chief growth officer at Diaceutics, and Jordan Clark, chief customer officer, to discuss why many diagnostic-driven ther...

As Fierce Pharma Week approaches, the Fierce Pharma Marketing team is taking stock of some of the biggest trends reshaping how drugmakers and healthcare agencies reach audiences. In this week’s episode of “The Top Line,” Fierce’s Ben Adams and Zoey Becker discuss how pharma marketing is evolving across social media, creative work and agency strategy. They dig into the chang...

Earnings calls are a chance to catch up with the latest developments across Big Pharma and beyond, and last quarter was no different. From the rollout of AI to the oral GLP-1 battle between Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and new leadership at Sarepta and Sanofi, it feels like the opportunities and challenges for biopharma have never been greater. In this week’s episode of "The Top Line," Fierce...

Consumerization is changing how patients engage with healthcare, and pharma companies may need to rethink how they approach awareness, diagnosis and commercialization. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line , host Irena Luo is joined by Rachel Stoll, Managing Partner, Growth & Innovation at Princeton10, and Kevin Nalty, Vice President of Strategy at Princeton10, to discuss how evolving pati...

Having spent 14 years building out its capacity, Regeneron Genetics Center—the genomic research branch of the Tarrytown, New York-based pharma—is a pro when it comes to the sort of target validation work central to the field today. Now, as RGC continues the massive expansion of its genetic database, the center’s unique ability to interpret that trove of data could give it an edge...

The future of patient support may depend less on how much data organizations collect and more on how effectively they connect, govern and activate it. In this sponsored episode of The Top Line , host Stephanie Butler speaks with ZS principals Asheesh Shukla and Kirti Prakash about the changing role of patient data in life sciences and what it will take to support more personalized engagement at sc...

Novo Nordisk’s second-quarter earnings results this week were closely watched by analysts and investors eager to see whether the rollout of oral Wegovy could neutralize concerns about the pharma’s pipeline. Fierce spoke to Novo’s chief financial officer, Karsten Munk Knudsen, to dig into the figures, including the reasons behind the company’s decision to raise its full-year...