'The Top Line' podcast: Lessons from Alzheimer's failures, is pharma doing enough for the climate, plus more

Last month, Fierce hosted an event to talk with experts across the industry about what's beyond the leading edge of biotech and pharma. This week's episode brings you information from four of the panel discussions. Our first panel focused on Alzheimer’s disease, where success is hard to come by. The panelists discussed the lessons that can come from past failures. We also had a panel about the industry’s environmental impact. As more companies are rolling out programs to cut carbon emissions, reduce waste and plug into alternative energy sources, we asked sustainability experts whether pharma is doing enough and what more needs to be done.

You'll also hear from our panelists on cell and gene therapies and why pricing concerns still loom. Only a few such therapies have made it to market so far. But as more hit the scene, insurers and pharmaceutical companies need to think about how to pay for them to avoid sticker shock. Finally, the use of artificial intelligence methods in drug research and development is really starting to take off. Businesses are increasingly using AI tools to find drugs—and it is working faster and more efficiently. We'll explore AI's evolution in drug discovery.  

To learn more about the topics in this episode: 

• Fierce Next Gen: Despite another key trial failure, Alzheimer's therapy developers find reason for optimism
• Setting sights on suppliers: How biopharma is tackling the environment in its ESG commitments
• Fierce Next Gen: As gene therapies proliferate, pharma and payers look to avoid 'cost shocks'
• Fierce Next Gen: Biopharma begins to hand AI the keys to the research car
• Justice Department cracks down on $1.2B worth of lab testing, telehealth fraud schemes

The Top Line is produced by senior multimedia producer Teresa Carey with editor-in-chief Tracy Staton, managing editor Querida Anderson and senior editors Annalee Armstrong, Ben Adams, Conor Hale and Eric Sagonowsky. The sound engineer is Caleb Hodgson. The stories are by all our “Fierce” journalists. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts.