🇨🇳As competition with China’s biotech sector heats up, industry experts are wondering what it takes to stay on the leading edge. John Maraganore, former CEO of Alnylam, said the Chinese work ethic should be a “wake-up call” for the US. “If you have a country that is trying to compete with our country in biotechnology, and they’re working super, super hard, we shouldn’t be resting on our laurels at this point in time,” he told Endpoints’ Kyle LaHucik. 

The ‘9-9-6’ mentality: Some Chinese companies operate on a ‘9-9-6’ mindset, in which employees work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. Others might come into the workplace between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. and depart between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., but will often work in the evenings and on weekends to communicate non-confidential information via WeChat. A McKinsey report published last month found that a multinational drugmaker spends 2.7 times more developing a successful medicine than a Chinese company does, with most of that gap resulting from “differences in speed, labor economics, R&D productivity and clinical trial locations.”

Work smarter, not longer: Putting pressure on employees to work at lightning speed can deliver incredible results, as evidenced most notably by the Covid-19 vaccines, Kyle writes. But not all biotech leaders subscribe to the idea that long work hours equate to winning. Jielun Zhu, CFO at Shanghai-based Excalipoint Therapeutics, said wanting to work hard and be successful is a self-motivated pursuit that can happen in any region of the world. “A typical Chinese scientist in a biotech company probably works longer hours than their counterpart in Europe or the US,” he said. “But that has a limit, you know.” You can read Kyle’s full analysis here.

🤔AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb set the biopharma world abuzz this week after the Financial Times reported the two companies were in merger discussions. A deal would have been one of the largest in corporate history — if not the single largest — creating one of the biggest drugmakers in the world at a $400 billion valuation. Pharma hasn’t seen a merger this big since Pfizer’s 1999 acquisition of Warner-Lambert for $90 billion. (Endpoints is majority-owned by the FT; the newsrooms operate separately.)

But the rumors were quashed almost as quickly as the discussions were reported. Later in the week, Reuters reported the talks were off, citing a “senior source” close to the discussions. “There is no deal between ​AstraZeneca and BMS. There never was a deal to be ​done, and there are no discussions between the companies," the source told Reuters. 

It’s still not clear whether these reports are part of the media-facing negotiations that typically come with megamergers. But AstraZeneca shareholders surely breathed a sigh of relief at where things currently stand, as several industry analysts questioned the drugmaker’s need to acquire a Bristol Myers-sized company. BMS, meanwhile, has been facing a bit of an identity crisis in what was expected to be a pivotal year. Read more about Wall Street’s concerns here. 

🪓Pfizer announced $2.5 billion in cost cuts in its earnings report this week, taking another step in a post-Covid strategy that has been defined by mid-sized dealmaking and constant expense trimming. The company’s austerity effort has grown past $10 billion since it was announced almost three years ago. Of the new cuts, $1 billion will come from savings across the business, with $1.5 billion coming from phased-in cuts to what it spends on input costs. Pfizer also disclosed a $3.8 billion write-down for a Phase 3 trial miss for the experimental cancer drug sigvotatug vedotin, which it acquired from Seagen. 

Taken together, the news presents a familiar theme for Pfizer, with executives scouring the business to find cuts while it bets that high-profile deals in cancer and obesity will pay off. The cuts have been one of the few tools to appease investors who have been disappointed by the pace of growth and the flurry of deals since its pandemic-era success. Read more about the cuts here.

💪Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have dominated the conversation surrounding obesity medicines. Kyle LaHucik and Elizabeth Cairns unpacked their rivalry here, digging into the latest stats on obesity pill uptake, Lilly’s aggressive dealmaking spree, and both companies’ plans for new obesity launches. 

Lilly’s CEO David Ricks said the company’s future “has never been brighter” during a call with investors on Wednesday. The company’s $23 billion in second-quarter revenue beat analysts’ estimates, and management once again raised its full-year revenue forecast. Its blockbuster tirzepatide is still about a decade away from its patent cliff, but Lilly has been on a sprint to shore up its pipeline and broaden its scope. Meanwhile, its obesity pill Foundayo appears to be trailing behind Novo’s oral Wegovy. 

Oral Wegovy continues to see massive demand, and doctors say their familiarity with the Wegovy franchise has given it a huge boost. But Novo also disclosed mixed data this week in a Phase 3 diabetes trial of its big hope CagriSema. It also said it ended work on an asset that it picked up from its acquisition of Inversago Pharma. CEO Maziar Mike Doustdar hinted that some dealmaking might be in Novo’s future, noting that “we need bolt-on acquisitions to complement what we are doing ourselves.”