The Top Line

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 Officer Jonathan Pachter, Ph.D., to dis...

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 of this year’s honorees, inclu...

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 therapies still fail to reach their full...

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 changing approach to HIV marketing, phar...

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 ...

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 patient behaviors are reshaping the heal...

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 in the age of AI-powered drug deve...

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 scale.

The conversation examines sever...

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 guidance and the launch of oral We...

The continued shift toward self-administered therapies is changing how pharmaceutical companies think about patient support. While access and affordability remain priorities, a growing share of industry attention is focused on the patient experience itself, particularly during the critical transition from prescription to successful treatment initiation.

In this episode of The Top Line, Adam Shain, Vice President and Head of Busines...

Is biotech taking a trip to the world of psychedelic drugs? Why is Novo Nordisk going after Eli Lilly’s Zepbound ads? And what are peptides? 

This week on "The Top Line," Fierce's Zoey Becker, Will Maddox and Kevin Dunleavy chat about some of the biggest recent stories. From a psychedelics acquisition that could spark more movement in the emerging field to an advisory committee meeting on peptides shrouded in political c...

This week on "The Top Line," Fierce Healthcare and Life Sciences' editor-in-chief steps behind the microphone for a solo episode highlighting several of the biggest stories in biopharma.

The episode covers GSK’s first lung cancer approval following its acquisition of Nuvalent, Axiom Biosciences’ unusual plan to list first in Hong Kong before pursuing a Nasdaq co-listing amid a resurgent biotech IPO market, and the U.S. ...

Clinical trial success depends on more than scientific rigor and operational execution. It also depends on the financial systems that support every stage of a study. In this episode of The Top Line, Zahiah “Zee Zee” Gueddar, senior director of commercial strategy for the Clinical Trial Financial Suite at IQVIA Technologies, discusses why modernizing clinical trial finance has become a strategic priority for sponsors.

As...

Boston. San Francisco. Beijing? The global biotech industry has long been concentrated in a handful of cities. But which emerging hubs could become dominant forces in biotech in the decades ahead?

In this week’s episode of “The Top Line,” Fierce Biotech’s Darren Incorvaia and Will Maddox discuss a new Fierce special report identifying five cities with the potential to become major forces in the global biotec...

Medical affairs is at an inflection point. As science advances and healthcare professionals gain access to information in real time, medical teams face a mandate to deliver insight with greater speed, relevance and impact.

In this episode of The Top Line, Josh Schwartz, Vice President of Medical Affairs, North America at BeOne Medicines, and Jalpa Shah, who leads the medical and evidence practice at ZS Pharma discuss what a modern ...

AI is reshaping how organizations compete, but more data and more tools do not automatically lead to better decisions. In this episode of The Top Line, Justin Masterson, senior vice president of human sciences at The Directions Group, challenges leaders to look beyond AI adoption and focus on the discipline required to act on intelligence.

Masterson argues that the defining issue for many organizations is not a data problem, but a ...

This week on "The Top Line," we’re covering some of the biggest stories across biopharma before turning to one of the industry’s major scientific meetings of the summer.

First, we discuss Vertex’s $10 billion acquisition of Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, the company’s largest deal to date, and what it says about Vertex’s push beyond its historic strength in cystic fibrosis. We also cover growing scrutiny f...

Big Pharma dealmaking has picked up, but the biotech path to a signed agreement is still anything but simple.

In this episode, recorded at Fierce Biotech Week, Senior Editor James Waldron leads a discussion on the evolving BD&L landscape across pharma and biotech.

He is joined by Kaleem Chowdhury, Ph.D., CEO of Haiku Biosciences; Liz Leveille, who leads the Boston Innovation Hub and discovery transactions at Merck; and Abbas Ka...

In this sponsored episode of The Top Line, host Stephanie Butler is joined by Sheila Plant, vice president of regulatory affairs at Allucent, to examine how FDA Breakthrough Therapy and RMAT designations can support more strategic oncology development. 

Although both pathways are intended to speed development, they are not interchangeable. Plant outlines the key distinctions, noting that Breakthrough Therapy&nbs...