The FDA warned Cal­i­for­nia-based Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio for a TV ad­ver­tise­ment and pod­cast that gave the "mis­lead­ing im­pres­sion" that Ank­ti­va, the com­pa­ny's treat­ment for a type of blad­der can­cer, can cure or pre­vent all can­cers.

The ad and pod­cast fea­tured bil­lion­aire en­tre­pre­neur and Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio founder Patrick Soon-Sh­iong. He false­ly claimed that Ank­ti­va is "in­tend­ed for new us­es for which it lacks ap­proval," the FDA said in the warn­ing let­ter re­leased on Tues­day.

The March 13 let­ter is a sign that the FDA, which has be­come more po­lit­i­cal with ap­pointees serv­ing as cen­ter di­rec­tors, is not afraid to push back against al­lies of HHS Sec­re­tary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. like Soon-Sh­iong.

The agency not­ed that it's es­pe­cial­ly con­cerned with the ad and pod­cast be­cause it sent two pri­or let­ters in Sep­tem­ber 2025 and Jan­u­ary 2026 to Im­mu­ni­ty­Bio's sub­sidiary Al­tor Bio­Science over sim­i­lar mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions of Ank­ti­va.

Gilead Sci­ences is set to en­ter the T cell en­gager space in an un­usu­al — per­haps even un­prece­dent­ed — deal arrange­ment that in­volves the phar­ma bud­get­ing about $1.68 bil­lion up­front to buy Ouro Med­i­cines and for Gala­pa­gos to do ear­ly work on the can­di­date.

While the Mon­day deal is atyp­i­cal, it is pos­si­bly un­sur­pris­ing con­sid­er­ing Gilead owns 25% of Gala­pa­gos stem­ming from a part­ner­ship signed in 2019, and that the Bel­gian biotech spent much of 2025 in re­struc­tur­ing mode be­fore end­ing the year with a thin pipeline. Both Gilead and Gala­pa­gos would be join­ing the T cell en­gager race for the first time, al­though they have ex­pe­ri­ence in the au­toim­mune dis­ease area that Ouro spe­cial­izes in.

Sh­iono­gi is dou­bling down on its sleep dis­or­der pipeline by buy­ing out Ap­n­imed's half of their joint ven­ture in the niche field.

The Japan­ese phar­ma will pay $100 mil­lion up­front to buy the 50% eq­ui­ty in­ter­est held by its Boston-area part­ner, Sh­iono­gi said Tues­day. The pair teamed up in 2023 un­der a "$150 mil­lion trans­ac­tion" to de­vel­op a joint­ly owned pipeline of sleep dis­or­der med­i­cines.

The deal gives Sh­iono­gi full con­trol of the pipeline un­der the joint ven­ture named Sh­iono­gi-Ap­n­imed Sleep Sci­ence, or SASS. That in­cludes SASS-001 and SASS-002 (sulth­i­ame). SASS-001 is a com­bo drug con­tain­ing sivopix­ant, a P2X3 re­cep­tor an­tag­o­nist, in Phase 2a for a type of sleep ap­nea. Mean­while, the oral can­di­date SASS-002 was in-li­censed from Ger­many-based com­pa­ny De­sitin Arzneimit­tel last April. It is in Phase 2 for ob­struc­tive sleep ap­nea.

Quo­tient Ther­a­peu­tics, a start­up study­ing how tiny ge­net­ic ty­pos cause some cells to get sick but al­low oth­ers to re­main healthy, has struck a part­ner­ship with Mer­ck.

The part­ner­ship will iden­ti­fy new drug tar­gets for in­flam­ma­to­ry bow­el dis­ease. It’s the third phar­ma deal Quo­tient has land­ed since it was found­ed by Flag­ship Pi­o­neer­ing in 2022. It comes with a $20 mil­lion up­front pay­ment from Mer­ck and it's el­i­gi­ble to re­ceive mile­stones worth as much as $2.2 bil­lion.

Quo­tient search­es for new ge­net­ic clues that pro­mote or pro­vide re­sis­tance to dis­ease. But rather than just look for dif­fer­ences be­tween peo­ple, as many sci­en­tists have done, it looks at in­di­vid­ual cells, hunt­ing for dis­crep­an­cies that ac­cu­mu­late from a life­time of wear and tear.