💊 Sosei continues Big Pharma alliances; WTO continues deferring decisions; China continues Covid transition

#240 | Whales make everything better

Hello, and welcome back for a brand new season of end-of-the-year Kables. 

Eli Lilly is partnering with Sosei Heptares to develop GPCR modulators for diabetes and metabolic diseases with a $37 million upfront payment. This is Lilly's second major announcement of December, after its tie-up with Egypt's EVA Pharma for cheaper insulin in LMICs. Sosei, meanwhile, has been on a spree of signing up Big Pharma. Its last such collab was with AbbVie, a $1.2 billion effort to unlock GPCR candidates for neurology signed in August this year. Another inflammatory diseases deal between Sosei and AbbVie has also triggered an R&D milestone payment to Sosei last week.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. That adage certainly holds true for the WTO Council and TRIPS waiver decisions. After several deferrals on an original, universally-panned waiver agreement, the WTO council has now deferred a decision on a waiver extension too.

Some people are known to say that everything will kill you in Australia. And many people say spinach will heal everything. What happens when spinach meets Australia, though? Turns out spinach in Australia won't heal or kill you. But eating Australian spinach will sure send you on a wild trip.

And finally, a final and fruitful agreement is expected today from COP15, the ongoing biodiversity summit. Based on everything we've seen so far, it does look like the onus of saving the planet is going to fall upon individuals, with moving to a plant-based or plant-heavy diet becoming a main recommendation.

(Editor's note: This edition of The Kable was written before The Plenary: Adoption of Decisions at COP15.)

---

Programming update: The Kable team will take a breather from 26 - 30 December 2022. We'll be back on January 2, 2023.