Adam Feuerstein is a senior writer and biotech columnist, reporting on the crossroads of drug development, business, Wall Street, and biotechnology. He is also a co-host of the weekly biotech podcast The Readout Loud and author of the newsletter Adam’s Biotech Scorecard. You can reach Adam on Signal at stataf.54.

Elaine Chen covers biotech, co-writes The Readout newsletter, and co-hosts STAT’s weekly biotech podcast, The Readout Loud. You can reach Elaine on Signal at elaineywchen.70.

On this week’s episode of “The Readout LOUD”: “Mean Girls” melodrama at the top of the FDA and the latest on the Pfizer-Novo Nordisk bidding war for Metsera.  

On a jam-packed show, your co-hosts, minus the vacationing Allison DeAngelis, chat with STAT’s D.C. correspondent Lizzy Lawrence about a slow-boiling feud between Vinay Prasad, the head of the FDA’s biologics and vaccine branch, and his staff that has triggered even more exits and plunging morale. On the drug side of the agency, we dish on the shocking exit of director George Tidmarsh after he was accused of using his regulatory position to exact personal revenge against a former business partner. Bonus: Prasad and Tidmarsh hate each other.

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We should all be loved as much as Metsera is loved … by Pfizer and Novo Nordisk. Everyone’s favorite obesity drug bidding war escalated this week. Bids are rising. Tempers are flaring, and the lawyers are winning. We break it all down. 

All that, plus the biotech news of the week.

Be sure to sign up for “The Readout LOUD” on Apple PodcastsSpotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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