June 18, 2026

The need-to-know this morning

Pfizer said Chief Financial Officer Dave Denton is leaving in August for "another professional opportunity" with a consumer goods company. Denton has been Pfizer's CFO since 2022. Cecile Guegan, currently Pfizer's senior vice president in finance, was named acting CFO.

Exclusive

Democrats build case against Kennedy's vaccine overhaul

Senate Democrats are laying the groundwork for a longer fight over the Trump administration’s vaccine policies, STAT’s Daniel Payne reports. They’re demanding records from HHS that could reveal how and why health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismantled and rebuilt the CDC’s influential vaccine advisory committee with vaccine-skeptical allies.

In a sharply worded letter, Sen. Ron Wyden and Sen. Maggie Hassan asked for documents detailing the decision-making behind the ACIP overhaul. They framed the request as an effort to evaluate its legality and public health consequences.

“The American people deserve to know the reasons that the administration decided to gut ACIP and whether that decision was based on the political and personal agendas of a small group of vaccine cynics who you and President Trump sought to appease,” Wyden and Hassan wrote in the letter.

Though it’s unlikely to force any immediate transparency, the letter suggests Democrats are building a record for potential future investigations.

longevity

Cambrian's experimental drug mimics exercise

From STAT's Megan Molteni: Longevity company Cambrian Bio disclosed that its experimental AMPK activator improved multiple metabolic parameters that decline with age in a Phase 1 trial of people with obesity and prediabetes. The one-daily oral drug, called ATX-304, is designed to mimic exercise by activating AMP-activated protein kinase — the enzyme that acts as a master switch to cellular metabolism.

The obesity medication significantly reduced liver fat and visceral adipose tissue and lowered resting metabolic rate after eight weeks. The data were presented last week at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association. Cambrian plans to test higher doses of the drug in Phase 2 studies starting later this year to evaluate its potential for weight loss while preserving muscle — a key differentiator companies are pursuing in the increasingly crowded GLP-1 space.

cancer

What Soon-Shiong says vs. what he's delivered

Patrick Soon-Shiong has spent years positioning himself as a visionary determined to crack pancreatic cancer. But the clinical evidence behind his claims remains remarkably thin, STAT’s Adam Feuerstein writes in his weekly Biotech Scorecard.

Revolution Medicines’ daraxonrasib is emerging as a genuine advance that could reshape treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer. But Soon-Shiong’s ImmunityBio has largely relied on dramatic anecdotes, promotional statements, and uncontrolled studies that fall far short of proving tangible survival benefits, Adam writes.

The company’s oft-cited claim that its multi-drug immunotherapy regimen doubled survival rests on comparisons to historical data rather than randomized evidence. And key portions of a Phase 2 trial have seemingly disappeared from public discussion without results having been reported.

infectious disease

Enanta Pharmaceuticals advancing its RSV antiviral

Enanta Pharmaceuticals is pushing its RSV antiviral zelicapavir into late-stage development after a positive FDA meeting, the company said this morning. Enanta will be testing its experimental drug in pediatric patients this summer and in high-risk adults this fall, with data due next year.

The company is betting that zelicapavir — which targets the RSV nucleoprotein — could become the first approved antiviral treatment for RSV, a market it estimates could exceed $2 billion globally. Although there are several RSV vaccines on the market, antivirals are not typically used for the disease — but there’s certainly use for one.

The adult trial will focus on patients most vulnerable to severe outcomes, including those 75 and older and people with COPD or heart failure. The pediatric study will evaluate how quickly symptoms can resolve in children as young as 28 days old.

antibiotics

After FDA setback, GSK's oral antibiotic approved

Four years after an FDA rejection, GSK and Spero Therapeutics have won approval for Utebzi, the first oral carbapenem antibiotic for complicated urinary tract infections. The approval gives patients a potential at-home alternative to IV treatment. A Phase 3 study showed the pill performed similarly to infused carbapenem therapy in nearly 1,700 hospitalized patients.

The decision caps a long and occasionally rocky development path, FiercePharma notes. This included a complete response letter in 2022, and an SEC settlement involving former Spero executives accused of misleading investors about the drug’s efficacy. But it’s a long-awaited result after Spero and GSK’s $591 million licensing deal, along with federal support from BARDA. For GSK, Utebzi expands a growing anti-infectives franchise focused on drug-resistant infections.

More around STAT