John Crow­ley is clear-eyed about the ob­sta­cles he faces. As CEO of the trade group BIO, he’s been tasked with mount­ing a po­lit­i­cal come­back for an in­dus­try that has tak­en its punch­es from De­moc­rats and Re­pub­li­cans alike.

The re­elec­tion of Don­ald Trump orig­i­nal­ly seemed like an op­por­tu­ni­ty. Busi­ness­es sali­vat­ed at the po­ten­tial for low­er tax­es and dereg­u­la­tion that of­ten spur mar­ket ral­lies and pos­i­tive sen­ti­ment. But wide­spread lay­offs to key fed­er­al health agen­cies, and loom­ing tar­iffs that he calls an “ex­is­ten­tial threat,” are dim­ming the near-term prospects for a wave of pos­i­tiv­i­ty. The list of cur­rent chal­lenges that he and the biotech in­dus­try face could fit on a scroll.

Can AI make an avatar of Mikael Dol­sten? The for­mer chief sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer of Pfiz­er will try to find out now that he's start­ing a new chap­ter at For­ma­tion Bio af­ter near­ly 16 years at the New York phar­ma gi­ant.

In one of his first in­ter­views since leav­ing Pfiz­er, Dol­sten ex­clu­sive­ly told End­points News that he is lead­ing a drug-pick­ing com­mit­tee at For­ma­tion Bio, an AI-fo­cused bio­phar­ma. In ad­di­tion to chair­ing that group, he will serve as a strate­gic ad­vi­sor to For­ma­tion Bio, a deeply am­bi­tious com­pa­ny that has raised over $600 mil­lion, in­clud­ing a $372 mil­lion Se­ries D last June.

Tang Cap­i­tal's shell com­pa­ny Con­cen­tra Bio­sciences se­cured its first ma­jor deal since late 2023.

Al­lakos has agreed to be ac­quired by Con­cen­tra for $0.33 per share in cash, and the Cal­i­for­nia biotech ex­pects the deal to close next month, it said Wednes­day morn­ing. Al­lakos' shares AL­LK closed Tues­day at $0.21 apiece and were up more than 45% in Wednes­day morn­ing trad­ing.

An Al­lakos spokesper­son did­n't im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment. Kevin Tang, who runs the biotech hedge fund, de­clined to com­ment.

In its press re­lease, Al­lakos said its board "unan­i­mous­ly de­ter­mined that the ac­qui­si­tion by Con­cen­tra is in the best in­ter­ests of all Al­lakos share­hold­ers."

The deal was inked Tues­day, ac­cord­ing to an SEC fil­ing.