GSK has handed over $45 million upfront to fellow London-based firm Relation to help the pharma identify new targets for fibrotic diseases and osteoarthritis.

Levicept arose from the metaphorical ashes of Pfizer’s former R&D campus in the U.K. Now, the biotech has scored a phase 2 win for an osteoarthritis drug that can also be traced back to the Big Pharma.

Amid all the panic over how GLP-1 medicines portend upheaval in biotech, pharma, and the entirety of global capitalism, an impending clinical readout could have legitimate implications for the treatment of a common disease.

An osteoarthritis trial ravaged by COVID, an FDA rejection, three failed clinical trials in COVID and now this: Ampio’s board is conducting an internal investigation and considering a sale.

Another once-hopeful partnership has come to an end, as Eli Lilly and Pfizer announced Tuesday that they have ceased the development of tanezumab, a pain drug the two had been developing for osteoarthritis. The decision came following negative feedback from both U.S. and European regulators.

Close to 3 years after tiny Belgian biotech Bone Therapeutics crashed on the Phase III failure of its treatment for osteonecrosis, it’s back with another pivotal flop.

This time the Phase III failure is for their “viscosupplement” JTA-004 for osteoarthritis, which went down on the primary and both secondary endpoints. The primary endpoint was a reduction in knee pain at 3 months compared against a placebo.

Three days after U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) staff raised safety concerns over Pfizer’s and Eli Lilly’s NGF osteoarthritis drug tanezumab, an advisory panel has also posted its own objections.

Ahead of an advisory committee meeting later this week, the FDA on Monday released its in-depth review of Pfizer and Eli Lilly’s anti-NGF osteoarthritis drug tanezumab, concluding that it “provides substantial evidence of effectiveness” but also raising concerns that the proposed risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) may not be enough to lessen its significant safety risks.

When the FDA accepted tanezumab, a nerve growth factor inhibitor developed jointly by Pfizer and Eli Lilly, for a Biologics License Application (BLA) review in March, the monoclonal antibody was heralded as a potential first-in-class treatment for patients with moderate to severe osteoarthritis who experienced inadequate relief from other analgesics.